muxel vs Shpool

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.

Shpool is free, open-source software for keeping named shell sessions alive when connections drop. It targets users who want persistence without terminal multiplexing features such as split windows or tiled panes, preserving native terminal scrollback and copy-paste. For SSH, Shpool runs on the remote host and needs no additional client software. Users reconnect with `shpool attach`; the terminal state is redrawn after reattachment. The command line can list, detach, or kill sessions, and `--ttl` sets a session lifetime. Variables in session names and attach options can redirect terminals to newly named sessions when values change. Bash, zsh, and fish support automatic session-name prompt prefixes. The README documents SSH configuration, shell-function patterns, Cargo installation through crates.io, and Homebrew installation on macOS. Shpool supports Linux, macOS, SSH, and command-line shells. It is licensed Apache-2.0, reports zero advisories, and allows only one client per session.