openmux vs Zellij

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.

Zellij is a terminal workspace for developers, operations-oriented users, and others who work in a terminal. It organizes work into tiled, floating, or stacked panes, which can be moved and resized with a mouse or keyboard. KDL layouts can define panes, tabs, commands, and plugins for repeatable workspace setups. Users can switch between named sessions and restore session structure and commands, including after reboots. A built-in web server enables browser access and remote session sharing over HTTPS; read-only tokens let observers view without interacting. The server is off by default, requires authentication, and its documentation recommends a reverse proxy on untrusted networks because it has no rate limiting. Plugins use WebAssembly and can be written in any language that compiles to WASM; Rust has an official SDK and scaffolding tools. Zellij works with existing terminal emulators, shells, and editors, but runs inside a terminal rather than replacing it. Zellij is free and open source at free, with no account required. Zellij.online is a paid hosted session-sharing service with a free tier and is described as being in closed beta.