muxel vs Okena

Muxel is a desktop terminal workspace for keeping AI coding agents and shells together. Its panes can be split horizontally or vertically, grouped into tabs, or moved into separate windows. Configurable presets cover Claude, opencode, Amp, Grok, Hermes, Ollama, Ollama Code, Pi, and Shell. Git worktrees isolate projects and support review and GitHub pull request actions. Prompt-based task runners can launch jobs and schedule saved prompts every few minutes, hourly, or daily. The app includes an editor, file browser, diff review, Git controls, a command palette, and terminal scrollback search. Agent status indicates working, idle, blocked, or done, with desktop notifications when an unfocused agent needs attention. Muxel runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows; agents can run on remote hosts over SSH while the interface and file tools stay local. It is free and open source under GPL-3.0, with a separate commercial license available. The maker says Muxel does not send projects, terminal contents, prompts, or usage to them; configured providers have their own data policies. Windows does not support tmux session persistence.

Okena is a native terminal multiplexer for running multiple command-line agents and projects in one window. Workspaces can be arranged as side-by-side project columns, tabs, split panes, detachable terminal windows, or fullscreen. The terminal uses GPU-accelerated rendering and supports scrollback of up to 100,000 lines. Okena can save and restore workspace layouts and terminal sessions across restarts; persistence is local. Users can manage Git worktrees as projects and view branches and change statistics. Documented integrations include status or usage information for Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, Docker Compose project services, and opening files in editors. Remote control is documented through a local HTTP and WebSocket API, with a browser client and iOS and Android companion apps. Pairing uses HMAC-SHA256 token authentication and rate-limited pairing codes, and downloaded updates are SHA256 verified. Okena is free and open source under the MIT License, with a listed plan of free. Installation commands are provided for macOS, Linux, and Windows, alongside instructions for building from source.