muxel vs Quil

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.

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.