openmux vs TermStation

openmux is a terminal multiplexer for Linux and macOS, with vertical, horizontal, and stacked pane layouts and nine workspaces. Each workspace can keep its own pane arrangement. Vim-style hjkl navigation and a Ctrl+b prefix provide two ways to control panes. Sessions preserve workspace layouts and pane working directories; users can detach while a background shim keeps running, then reattach from another client. The project also offers an aggregate PTY browser for filtering and previewing terminals by process, directory, or Git branch. Terminal features include mouse tracking, scrollback, pane zoom, and Kitty graphics support for image rendering, pixel sizing, and SSH-aware offloading. Its CLI handles session and pane operations such as creating sessions, splitting panes, sending text, capturing output, and listing sessions as JSON. Configuration changes for layout, theme, and keybindings hot-reload while openmux is running. The MIT-licensed project is listed at free. Installation options include a curl script, npm, Bun, source build, or prebuilt binaries for macOS Apple Silicon and Linux x64 or arm64.

TermStation is a web-based terminal session manager with an API for organizing sessions across multiple machines. Configurable templates set CLI commands and arguments, then shape the forms used to create sessions. Session and workspace scratch pads, session links, and file generation with macros and includes support day-to-day work. It can launch commands in containers and route HTTP access to web servers in those containers through a reverse tunnel. Multiple users can work with role-based access and share sessions. Configurable code-forge integrations include GitHub by default; the maker also demonstrates installing Claude, Codex, and Cursor in a container. TermStation is open source under the MIT license and free. It is marked pre-alpha and not ready for general distribution. Backend requirements include Ubuntu 22.04+ or Rocky Linux 10+, Node.js 22+, and Docker or Podman. Authentication exists, but the maker says it is not hardened for untrusted networks and advises against public exposure. Session data must be deleted manually until automatic cleanup is implemented.