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GNU Screen vs Quil

GNU Screen

gnu.org

Quil

quil.cc

Side by side

FigureGNU ScreenQuil
Price from—Free
Free plan—Yes
Free trial——
Open source——
Windows—Yes
macOS—Yes
Linux—Yes
Self-hosted—Yes
Plans published01
Spec score · Terminal Multiplexers5.7 (#29)7.7 (#12)

Plans

GNU Screen

No plans published.

GNU Screen pricing →

Quil

  • FreeFree

Quil pricing →

In their own words

GNU Screen

GNU Screen has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.

Visit gnu.org

Quil

Quil is a free, open-source terminal multiplexer for developers coordinating multi-tool workflows alongside AI coding assistants. It continuously saves tabs, panes, working directories, and layout, then restores that workspace after a host reboot. AI panes for Claude Code, OpenCode, and Codex can resume sessions after daemon restarts. Built-in pane types include terminals, those AI tools, SSH, Stripe CLI, lazygit, hunk, k9s, and lazysql. Its MCP server lets compatible clients such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor interact with a running Quil session. Users can define pane types in TOML plugin files, which reload when saved. A command palette can find panes and tabs and search scrollback across panes. Quil runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows; remote attach over SSH to Linux or macOS is marked beta. It has no hosted version or cloud account and stores workspace state locally under ~/.quil/. The maker says it has no telemetry or database. Docker sandboxing is available for Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode, but network egress is not bounded and users supply the container image.

Visit quil.cc