{"slug": "zellij", "name": "Zellij", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "Terminal workspace and multiplexer written in Rust, an alternative to tmux.", "recommenders": 28, "commenters": 39, "warners": 1, "score": 26.832, "rising": 4.11, "first": "2025-12-05", "latest": "2026-10-30", "why": "HN commenters like Zellij as a tmux alternative with sane defaults and a gentler learning curve, and for persistent sessions they can reattach to from laptops, phones and servers.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 29, "neutral": 9, "compare": 2, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 2, 2, 0, 0, 2, 6, 3, 4, 4, 2, 4], "listed": true, "loved": ["Sane defaults", "Persistent sessions"], "caveat": "Copy and scrollback", "short_quote": "Zellij is a breath of fresh air in the terminal and my daily driver for years.", "icon": true, "domain": "zellij.dev", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://zellij.dev/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Zellij", "zellij"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like Zellij as a tmux alternative with sane defaults and a gentler learning curve,", "cites": [{"id": 790006192, "item_id": 49375387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375387", "by": "ilioscio", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults", "excerpt": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults, I expected to come crawling back to tmux, but it's actually stuck quite nicely and has become a staple in my workflow. It hasn't been a perfect experience, but I like it a lot and I'm happy to see a new feature-rich release like this.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}, {"id": 785603969, "item_id": 49100248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49100248", "by": "dtnewman", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I use Zellij, because tmux feels like learning another vim.", "excerpt": "I love how ghostty does windows/tabs/splits, but ultimately, I don't find myself using them. I find that I only have so much muscle memory in my hands, and I need to stick with one solution that works everywhere. A multiplexer let's me do this on my own machine, or if I'm SSH'd in elsewhere. Personally I use Zellij, because tmux feels like learning another vim. But I do use tmux when using tmate, because it's the sim", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mitchellh starts a new company: Superlogical"}, {"id": 764201953, "item_id": 47762622, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762622", "by": "ramon156", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still use zellij. I like the scroll info, the default bindings", "excerpt": "I love that most tmux features are programmatic and unix-oriented. > # reload config file (change file location to your the tmux.conf you want to use) > bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf Just seems fun. That said, I still use zellij. I like the scroll info, the default bindings, and the fact it plays nicely with my setup of fish+alac. I might swap alacritty with ghostty at some point, but this works for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Make Tmux Pretty and Usable"}, {"id": 772111888, "item_id": 48256993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48256993", "by": "ramses0", "date": "2026-05-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "none of them clicked in the same way with power, ease, and flexibility that zellij felt like it provided right away.", "excerpt": "https://zellij.dev/tutorials/basic-functionality/ If you're already a tmux expert then zellij is probably no big deal, and the \"written in rust\" part is more of a red-herring than the headline. Firstly, it doesn't conflict with Ctrl-A by default (but I think that's actually `screen`), second it has mouse support, floating window, saved layouts, stacked tabs, session picker/manager, and take a look at the configuratio", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "It's time to talk about my writerdeck"}]}, {"text": " and for persistent sessions they can reattach to from laptops, phones and servers.", "cites": [{"id": 738675872, "item_id": 46167242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167242", "by": "kstrauser", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I freaking love Zellij.", "excerpt": "An endorsement: I freaking love Zellij. I mainly use it like one might use Tmux, to keep remote sessions alive so I can reconnect to them from another host than where I began the session: * Ssh in to myserver.cloud from my laptop. Run Zellij. Fire off various long-running processes in multiple tabs. * On my commute home, ssh in from my phone, run `zellij attach`, and check on the status of those processes. * Once hom", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent remote terminal sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included"}, {"id": 797047329, "item_id": 49815458, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49815458", "by": "rsmedrano", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "one persistent zellij session on whatever machine stays on", "excerpt": "Hi HN, author here. I got tired of juggling separate SSH sessions across my phone, laptop and an old e-reader just to check on a few machines at home, so I built this: one persistent zellij session on whatever machine stays on (I call it \"the brain\"), laid out once from a profile. Every device with a terminal drops into the same session -- same tabs, same scrollback. A few decisions I'd be curious to hear opinions on", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent shared terminal session", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phosphor Deck \u2013 one zellij session your phone and laptop share"}, {"id": 744327137, "item_id": 46520446, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46520446", "by": "kator", "date": "2026-01-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Terminus with Zellij and keep about 8 sessions going", "excerpt": "I use Terminus with Zellij and keep about 8 sessions going with a combination of Claude and Codex, and once in a while, Gemini. It's great when you're sitting in a docotor's office lobby bored out of your skull and when you get back to your desk you just join the session and it's all right there.", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent terminal sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone"}, {"id": 772328353, "item_id": 48270522, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48270522", "by": "darkteflon", "date": "2026-05-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Blink terminal with Zellij for shared session persistence with my Mac at home.", "excerpt": "I do this with a Nuphy Air 60 v2. I 3d printed a custom slip case for it, to which I stuck a MagSafe sticker ring. I then carry a small MagSafe tripod attached to that. Sit down, take the keyboard from the slip case, slide off the tripod, attach the phone and I\u2019m good to go. Full QMK/VIA support, so I don\u2019t have to go without my beloved home row mods etc. Blink terminal with Zellij for shared session persistence with", "context": "", "use_case": "session persistence", "switched_from": "", "story": "I love my Bluetooth keyboard"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is weak keyboard-driven selection and copying from the scrollback,", "cites": [{"id": 804796032, "item_id": 50299752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299752", "by": "saghm", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it using it would force me to adapt to a bunch of new workflows that didn't resemble anything I had seen before, and it didn't really seem worth the effort", "excerpt": "Pretty much the first thing I tried to set up with I heard about Zellij and decided to give it a shot a while back was how to scroll back and copy paste text without using the mouse, since that's one of the core features of tmux for me. If my recollection is correct, the closest thing that I was able to figure out was some sort of built-in way to open output in a vim buffer, with the info I found when googling basica", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 777049904, "item_id": 48565619, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48565619", "by": "ghshephard", "date": "2026-06-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love zellij - it feels like the future", "excerpt": "With the one caveat that it does not (yet) support copy/paste buffers or copying from the scroll back buffer. It\u2019s also adamant that you use a mouse to select/copy - anything more complex and you need to pipe everything into neovim (or whatever text editor you use) and do your work there. I love zellij - it feels like the future - but hard to give up keyboard based select/copy and pulling from my scrollback.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "SpaceX to buy Cursor AI coding agent operator Anysphere for $60B"}, {"id": 804786369, "item_id": 50299148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299148", "by": "desireco42", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it", "excerpt": "I used Zellij in the past, it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it as I was getting frustrated. Herdr has been wonderful and I've been using it for a while.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}]}, {"text": " which pushed some users back to other tools.", "cites": [{"id": 804786369, "item_id": 50299148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299148", "by": "desireco42", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it", "excerpt": "I used Zellij in the past, it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it as I was getting frustrated. Herdr has been wonderful and I've been using it for a while.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 750838881, "item_id": 46927430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46927430", "by": "maurizzzio", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "compare", "quote": "It fulfilled my requirements for a terminal multiplexer, but I found some things annoying", "excerpt": "I used Zellij consistently for a few weeks as a possible alternative to Tmux. It fulfilled my requirements for a terminal multiplexer, but I found some things annoying and switched back to Tmux. I\u2019m very happy with Tmux for now.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux to Zellij (and Back)"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Sane defaults", "summary": "Commenters find it more approachable than tmux, with sensible default bindings and built-in features.", "quotes": [{"id": 790006192, "item_id": 49375387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375387", "by": "ilioscio", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults", "excerpt": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults, I expected to come crawling back to tmux, but it's actually stuck quite nicely and has become a staple in my workflow. It hasn't been a perfect experience, but I like it a lot and I'm happy to see a new feature-rich release like this.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}, {"id": 785603969, "item_id": 49100248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49100248", "by": "dtnewman", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I use Zellij, because tmux feels like learning another vim.", "excerpt": "I love how ghostty does windows/tabs/splits, but ultimately, I don't find myself using them. I find that I only have so much muscle memory in my hands, and I need to stick with one solution that works everywhere. A multiplexer let's me do this on my own machine, or if I'm SSH'd in elsewhere. Personally I use Zellij, because tmux feels like learning another vim. But I do use tmux when using tmate, because it's the sim", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mitchellh starts a new company: Superlogical"}, {"id": 772111888, "item_id": 48256993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48256993", "by": "ramses0", "date": "2026-05-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "none of them clicked in the same way with power, ease, and flexibility that zellij felt like it provided right away.", "excerpt": "https://zellij.dev/tutorials/basic-functionality/ If you're already a tmux expert then zellij is probably no big deal, and the \"written in rust\" part is more of a red-herring than the headline. Firstly, it doesn't conflict with Ctrl-A by default (but I think that's actually `screen`), second it has mouse support, floating window, saved layouts, stacked tabs, session picker/manager, and take a look at the configuratio", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "It's time to talk about my writerdeck"}]}, {"label": "Persistent sessions", "summary": "Users keep long-running sessions on one machine and reattach from phones, laptops and desktops.", "quotes": [{"id": 738675872, "item_id": 46167242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167242", "by": "kstrauser", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I freaking love Zellij.", "excerpt": "An endorsement: I freaking love Zellij. I mainly use it like one might use Tmux, to keep remote sessions alive so I can reconnect to them from another host than where I began the session: * Ssh in to myserver.cloud from my laptop. Run Zellij. Fire off various long-running processes in multiple tabs. * On my commute home, ssh in from my phone, run `zellij attach`, and check on the status of those processes. * Once hom", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent remote terminal sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included"}, {"id": 797047329, "item_id": 49815458, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49815458", "by": "rsmedrano", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "one persistent zellij session on whatever machine stays on", "excerpt": "Hi HN, author here. I got tired of juggling separate SSH sessions across my phone, laptop and an old e-reader just to check on a few machines at home, so I built this: one persistent zellij session on whatever machine stays on (I call it \"the brain\"), laid out once from a profile. Every device with a terminal drops into the same session -- same tabs, same scrollback. A few decisions I'd be curious to hear opinions on", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent shared terminal session", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phosphor Deck \u2013 one zellij session your phone and laptop share"}, {"id": 744327137, "item_id": 46520446, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46520446", "by": "kator", "date": "2026-01-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Terminus with Zellij and keep about 8 sessions going", "excerpt": "I use Terminus with Zellij and keep about 8 sessions going with a combination of Claude and Codex, and once in a while, Gemini. It's great when you're sitting in a docotor's office lobby bored out of your skull and when you get back to your desk you just join the session and it's all right there.", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent terminal sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone"}]}, {"label": "Agent workflows", "summary": "Several use it to run and manage coding agents across tabs and panes.", "quotes": [{"id": 785594097, "item_id": 49099631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49099631", "by": "vicek22", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use zellij exclusively to work with agents", "excerpt": "I love Ghostty. But I miss out on lots of its features because I use zellij exclusively to work with agents. This sounds exciting and I hope they'll choose some cliff oss license like gitbutler does", "context": "works with coding agents", "use_case": "working with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Superlogical \u2013 Mitchell Hashimoto"}, {"id": 781198256, "item_id": 48824891, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824891", "by": "alasano", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use zellij a lot and created myself a zellij skill for an agent to manage my sessions/layouts in zellij directly.", "excerpt": "I use zellij a lot and created myself a zellij skill for an agent to manage my sessions/layouts in zellij directly. So for a new worktree the agent can create a tab in zellij with multiple panes, properly named etc. It works really nicely. Although since I got the 52 inch Dell monitor I tend to just put everything visible at all once most of the time.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent-managed sessions and layouts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr: One terminal to rule them all"}, {"id": 779475024, "item_id": 48717189, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717189", "by": "joch", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched from tmux to Zellij a while back", "excerpt": "I switched from tmux to Zellij a while back, and lately added a stop hook that sends a terminal ping to the correct tab when the agent is done (and I'm not looking at the tab). It has been pretty convenient so far. Added an example here: https://johnny.chadda.se/zellij-stop-hook/", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer with agent notifications", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "Herdr: Agent multiplexer that lives in your terminal"}]}, {"label": "Terminal IDE", "summary": "Paired with editors like Helix or Neovim, it serves as a lightweight IDE replacement.", "quotes": [{"id": 792860625, "item_id": 49553789, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49553789", "by": "bspeelm", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "landed on Zellij and Yazi, made a dev console alias, and was off. Faster, lighter, less distracting.", "excerpt": "I was tired of IDEs shipping with AI bloatware and telemetry. 1 GB for a \"lightweight\" IDE is fairly laughable. And all of that would be fine if I used any of it. I didn't. What I actually used came down to three things: a file browser, a console for my code assist, and a console for CLI commands. (I admit a debugger occasionally but less so these days.) So I went looking at what the terminal could do in 2026 and lan", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer workspace", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bothy \u2013 a one-command terminal workspace from tools you trust"}, {"id": 743997377, "item_id": 46499836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499836", "by": "bargainbin", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZelliJ really allows you to setup some IDE features", "excerpt": "I switched to Helix and ZelliJ, ZelliJ really allows you to setup some IDE features and helix is like the surface layer of Vi. Combined it becomes a very powerful setup!", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing, IDE features", "switched_from": "", "story": "I switched from VSCode to Zed"}, {"id": 761892449, "item_id": 47618278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618278", "by": "nazarewk", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have switched to Helix inside Zellij + Jujutsu instead of git and not really looking back after.", "excerpt": "I was running JetBrains suite since ~2010, but late 2025 I have switched to Helix inside Zellij + Jujutsu instead of git and not really looking back after. Took some getting used to, sometimes I miss the GUI, debugger and some of the more advanced tools, but I generally feel a lot more productive (especially in Nix/Go) with added responsiveness, can easily work on a much bulkier machine over SSH and have a real chanc", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your dev set up like?"}]}, {"label": "Scriptable layouts", "summary": "Layouts and sessions can be scripted, e.g. per git worktree or with fzf.", "quotes": [{"id": 774625377, "item_id": 48414086, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48414086", "by": "Galanwe", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "script which creates a git worktree + zellij pane with a specific layout", "excerpt": "I have a vibe coded script which creates a git worktree + zellij pane with a specific layout + a virtualenv per feature. The zellij layout includes panes for OpenCode, a shell, a neovim, inotify tests, etc. I switch between zellij sessions during refills.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 790443904, "item_id": 49402744, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49402744", "by": "kruskakli", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just fake the layout using zellij, fzf and a little scripting", "excerpt": "or just fake the layout using zellij, fzf and a little scripting... hehe https://github.com/etnt/my-zellij-config", "context": "", "use_case": "faking an editor layout", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: terminal-code \u2013 VS Code inside the terminal"}, {"id": 781198256, "item_id": 48824891, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824891", "by": "alasano", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use zellij a lot and created myself a zellij skill for an agent to manage my sessions/layouts in zellij directly.", "excerpt": "I use zellij a lot and created myself a zellij skill for an agent to manage my sessions/layouts in zellij directly. So for a new worktree the agent can create a tab in zellij with multiple panes, properly named etc. It works really nicely. Although since I got the 52 inch Dell monitor I tend to just put everything visible at all once most of the time.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent-managed sessions and layouts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr: One terminal to rule them all"}]}, {"label": "Terminal pairing", "summary": "Reported to work well with Ghostty and Alacritty.", "quotes": [{"id": 804812112, "item_id": 50300757, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50300757", "by": "ajoseps", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched to Zellij with Ghostty and the selection/copy/pasting seems to work just fine.", "excerpt": "I recently switched to Zellij with Ghostty and the selection/copy/pasting seems to work just fine. I previously used zellij and kitty and I would have issues.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "kitty", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 783538017, "item_id": 48971126, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971126", "by": "benrutter", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use alacritty + zellij and it works fantastic.", "excerpt": "If you're looking for a non-ghostty recommendation (not that I have anything against ghostty) I use alacritty + zellij and it works fantastic. It doesn't seem to impact battery, I certainly get good battery usage on both my work and home laptops.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code uses Bun written in Rust now"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Copy and scrollback", "summary": "Keyboard-based selection and copying from scrollback is limited, often requiring the mouse or an editor.", "quotes": [{"id": 804796032, "item_id": 50299752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299752", "by": "saghm", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it using it would force me to adapt to a bunch of new workflows that didn't resemble anything I had seen before, and it didn't really seem worth the effort", "excerpt": "Pretty much the first thing I tried to set up with I heard about Zellij and decided to give it a shot a while back was how to scroll back and copy paste text without using the mouse, since that's one of the core features of tmux for me. If my recollection is correct, the closest thing that I was able to figure out was some sort of built-in way to open output in a vim buffer, with the info I found when googling basica", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 777049904, "item_id": 48565619, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48565619", "by": "ghshephard", "date": "2026-06-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love zellij - it feels like the future", "excerpt": "With the one caveat that it does not (yet) support copy/paste buffers or copying from the scroll back buffer. It\u2019s also adamant that you use a mouse to select/copy - anything more complex and you need to pipe everything into neovim (or whatever text editor you use) and do your work there. I love zellij - it feels like the future - but hard to give up keyboard based select/copy and pulling from my scrollback.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "SpaceX to buy Cursor AI coding agent operator Anysphere for $60B"}, {"id": 804786369, "item_id": 50299148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299148", "by": "desireco42", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it", "excerpt": "I used Zellij in the past, it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it as I was getting frustrated. Herdr has been wonderful and I've been using it for a while.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}]}, {"label": "Learning curve", "summary": "Some found its workflows unfamiliar or limiting at first.", "quotes": [{"id": 804796032, "item_id": 50299752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299752", "by": "saghm", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it using it would force me to adapt to a bunch of new workflows that didn't resemble anything I had seen before, and it didn't really seem worth the effort", "excerpt": "Pretty much the first thing I tried to set up with I heard about Zellij and decided to give it a shot a while back was how to scroll back and copy paste text without using the mouse, since that's one of the core features of tmux for me. If my recollection is correct, the closest thing that I was able to figure out was some sort of built-in way to open output in a vim buffer, with the info I found when googling basica", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 799543792, "item_id": 49971487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49971487", "by": "__MatrixMan__", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I stick to CLI's and TUI's and use zellij as my window manager.", "excerpt": "I stick to CLI's and TUI's and use zellij as my window manager. This way the configs and muscle memory I develop on my work macbook are transferrable to the linux box I use for personal projects, and visa versa. It seemed a bit limiting at first, but after adapting to it I feel like it was the right move. GUI's represent a sort of explosion in the set of valid states for software to be in, and I find that software wh", "context": "uses macbook at work and Linux box at home", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer / window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "A third way of using Linux"}]}, {"label": "Rough edges", "summary": "Some users found things annoying and went back to tmux, or note it is not perfect.", "quotes": [{"id": 750838881, "item_id": 46927430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46927430", "by": "maurizzzio", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "compare", "quote": "It fulfilled my requirements for a terminal multiplexer, but I found some things annoying", "excerpt": "I used Zellij consistently for a few weeks as a possible alternative to Tmux. It fulfilled my requirements for a terminal multiplexer, but I found some things annoying and switched back to Tmux. I\u2019m very happy with Tmux for now.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux to Zellij (and Back)"}, {"id": 790006192, "item_id": 49375387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375387", "by": "ilioscio", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults", "excerpt": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults, I expected to come crawling back to tmux, but it's actually stuck quite nicely and has become a staple in my workflow. It hasn't been a perfect experience, but I like it a lot and I'm happy to see a new feature-rich release like this.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}]}, {"label": "Screen space", "summary": "One commenter dislikes losing terminal real estate to the multiplexer UI.", "quotes": [{"id": 790042000, "item_id": 49377625, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49377625", "by": "Spartan-S63", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I've tried tmux and Zellij and if I used a multiplexer, it would be Zellij.", "excerpt": "I'm curious for folks who use multiplexers: I've tried tmux and Zellij and if I used a multiplexer, it would be Zellij. However, I can't stand losing terminal real estate, but I don't know why that is. How do you deal with the loss of real estate from a multiplexer? I use Ghostty, so new tabs and splits don't feel that strange to me. I'm guessing the feature I'm missing out on is session resumption and presets? If I ", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}]}, {"label": "Unclear docs", "summary": "The landing page and docs are said to poorly explain what it is and how it differs from tmux.", "quotes": [{"id": 738686304, "item_id": 46167894, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167894", "by": "mhitza", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The landing page does a bad job at explaining what it is", "excerpt": "The landing page does a bad job at explaining what it is, same with the first page of the documentation. I get it from the other comments that it's a terminal multiplexer, and considered an alternative to tmux. But tmux and screen are well established, and should take the opportunity to explain in what way it is different from those.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included"}]}], "who": [{"by": "__MatrixMan__", "context": "uses macbook at work and Linux box at home", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49971487", "date": "2026-10-05"}, {"by": "vicek22", "context": "works with coding agents", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49099631", "date": "2026-07-29"}], "tags": ["for tmux switchers", "for coding agents", "for remote SSH work", "for phone access", "for macOS and Linux"], "use_cases": ["terminal multiplexer", "terminal multiplexing", "terminal multiplexer / window manager", "persistent shared terminal session", "terminal multiplexer workspace", "faking an editor layout"], "compared": [{"slug": "tmux", "name": "tmux", "co": 25, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "herdr", "name": "herdr", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "ghostty", "name": "Ghostty", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "kitty", "name": "Kitty", "co": 3, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "yazi", "name": "yazi", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "superset", "name": "Superset", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "zmx", "name": "zmx", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50298436", "title": "Herdr has released native app", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49373884", "title": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50148855", "title": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48756578", "title": "Herdr: One terminal to rule them all", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48413629", "title": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46163377", "title": "Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {"compare": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 6}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 3}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 4, "compare": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1, "warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804812112, "item_id": 50300757, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50300757", "by": "ajoseps", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched to Zellij with Ghostty and the selection/copy/pasting seems to work just fine.", "excerpt": "I recently switched to Zellij with Ghostty and the selection/copy/pasting seems to work just fine. I previously used zellij and kitty and I would have issues.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "kitty", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 804796032, "item_id": 50299752, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299752", "by": "saghm", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it using it would force me to adapt to a bunch of new workflows that didn't resemble anything I had seen before, and it didn't really seem worth the effort", "excerpt": "Pretty much the first thing I tried to set up with I heard about Zellij and decided to give it a shot a while back was how to scroll back and copy paste text without using the mouse, since that's one of the core features of tmux for me. If my recollection is correct, the closest thing that I was able to figure out was some sort of built-in way to open output in a vim buffer, with the info I found when googling basica", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 804786369, "item_id": 50299148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50299148", "by": "desireco42", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it", "excerpt": "I used Zellij in the past, it is also fantastic and intuitive product. I had issues with... I think selection and copying and pasting which made me abandon it as I was getting frustrated. Herdr has been wonderful and I've been using it for a while.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr has released native app"}, {"id": 802517152, "item_id": 50157322, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157322", "by": "cosmojg", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend giving Zellij a try.", "excerpt": "If you want a little bit more of a batteries-included experience, Zellij[1] is to tmux what Fish is to Bash and what Helix/Neovim is to Vim. If you like any of those, I highly recommend giving Zellij a try. [1] https://zellij.dev/", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 802483456, "item_id": 50155216, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155216", "by": "Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I switched to zellij and haven't looked back.", "excerpt": "Personally I switched to zellij and haven't looked back. Though any of them is worth it over nothing.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 799543792, "item_id": 49971487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49971487", "by": "__MatrixMan__", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I stick to CLI's and TUI's and use zellij as my window manager.", "excerpt": "I stick to CLI's and TUI's and use zellij as my window manager. This way the configs and muscle memory I develop on my work macbook are transferrable to the linux box I use for personal projects, and visa versa. It seemed a bit limiting at first, but after adapting to it I feel like it was the right move. GUI's represent a sort of explosion in the set of valid states for software to be in, and I find that software wh", "context": "uses macbook at work and Linux box at home", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer / window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "A third way of using Linux"}, {"id": 797047329, "item_id": 49815458, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49815458", "by": "rsmedrano", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "one persistent zellij session on whatever machine stays on", "excerpt": "Hi HN, author here. I got tired of juggling separate SSH sessions across my phone, laptop and an old e-reader just to check on a few machines at home, so I built this: one persistent zellij session on whatever machine stays on (I call it \"the brain\"), laid out once from a profile. Every device with a terminal drops into the same session -- same tabs, same scrollback. A few decisions I'd be curious to hear opinions on", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent shared terminal session", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phosphor Deck \u2013 one zellij session your phone and laptop share"}, {"id": 794653936, "item_id": 49665871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49665871", "by": "gregwebs", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I am already a zellij user", "excerpt": "I am already a zellij user and not sure if I want to drive everything from an IDE instead. I definitely see the appeal though. I like the discoverability of the text prompt commands. I like that the terminal is more of a first class citizen. I like that I can run this with just `go run`. The themes are pretty bad right now IMHO. I use solarized/gruvbox themes- both light and dark.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rune is now open source"}, {"id": 792860625, "item_id": 49553789, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49553789", "by": "bspeelm", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "landed on Zellij and Yazi, made a dev console alias, and was off. Faster, lighter, less distracting.", "excerpt": "I was tired of IDEs shipping with AI bloatware and telemetry. 1 GB for a \"lightweight\" IDE is fairly laughable. And all of that would be fine if I used any of it. I didn't. What I actually used came down to three things: a file browser, a console for my code assist, and a console for CLI commands. (I admit a debugger occasionally but less so these days.) So I went looking at what the terminal could do in 2026 and lan", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer workspace", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bothy \u2013 a one-command terminal workspace from tools you trust"}, {"id": 790443904, "item_id": 49402744, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49402744", "by": "kruskakli", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just fake the layout using zellij, fzf and a little scripting", "excerpt": "or just fake the layout using zellij, fzf and a little scripting... hehe https://github.com/etnt/my-zellij-config", "context": "", "use_case": "faking an editor layout", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: terminal-code \u2013 VS Code inside the terminal"}, {"id": 790415971, "item_id": 49400998, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49400998", "by": "folkrav", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "tmux/zellij as multiplexers", "excerpt": "Not OP but, I regularly use : - yazi as a file explorer - lazygit for git - tmux/zellij as multiplexers - fzf left and right for a bunch of utils (terminal history, switching between projects in zellij/tmux when working in multi-project workspaces, etc) - neovim as a text editor - glow for markdown reading - currently on pi for my home harness, CC at work I'm probably missing a few but those are the ones I use more o", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 790061920, "item_id": 49378870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378870", "by": "blakeashleyjr", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Zellij is a breath of fresh air in the terminal and my daily driver for years.", "excerpt": "Zellij is a breath of fresh air in the terminal and my daily driver for years. Thanks to the team for all their hard work?", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}, {"id": 790042000, "item_id": 49377625, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49377625", "by": "Spartan-S63", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I've tried tmux and Zellij and if I used a multiplexer, it would be Zellij.", "excerpt": "I'm curious for folks who use multiplexers: I've tried tmux and Zellij and if I used a multiplexer, it would be Zellij. However, I can't stand losing terminal real estate, but I don't know why that is. How do you deal with the loss of real estate from a multiplexer? I use Ghostty, so new tabs and splits don't feel that strange to me. I'm guessing the feature I'm missing out on is session resumption and presets? If I ", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}, {"id": 790006192, "item_id": 49375387, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375387", "by": "ilioscio", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults", "excerpt": "Switched to Zellij a few years back mostly for the sane defaults, I expected to come crawling back to tmux, but it's actually stuck quite nicely and has become a staple in my workflow. It hasn't been a perfect experience, but I like it a lot and I'm happy to see a new feature-rich release like this.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "Zellij 0.45.0: nested sessions, Kitty graphics, a fresh UI"}, {"id": 789362627, "item_id": 49335164, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335164", "by": "rickye26", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I want to keep my existing workflow in Kitty and tmux/zellij", "excerpt": "This looks really cool, especially on the remote control part. I've experienced exactly the same problem, but ended up building my own tool through an opposite architectural approach than Saggar. The main difference is that I want to keep my existing workflow in Kitty and tmux/zellij. Since all of them provide solid remote control protocol, I wrote captain-miao (https://github.com/hyperlogue/captain-miao) which is a ", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Saggar, a Mac terminal that keeps sessions and your attention organized"}, {"id": 785785472, "item_id": 49111592, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49111592", "by": "leflambeur", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Zellij", "excerpt": "I use Zellij and only recently had a colleague tell me that the name comes from Arabic and had not made the link to \"Azulejo\". It makes sense of course, considering they all refer to some form of tiling :)", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Azulejo"}, {"id": 785603969, "item_id": 49100248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49100248", "by": "dtnewman", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Personally I use Zellij, because tmux feels like learning another vim.", "excerpt": "I love how ghostty does windows/tabs/splits, but ultimately, I don't find myself using them. I find that I only have so much muscle memory in my hands, and I need to stick with one solution that works everywhere. A multiplexer let's me do this on my own machine, or if I'm SSH'd in elsewhere. Personally I use Zellij, because tmux feels like learning another vim. But I do use tmux when using tmate, because it's the sim", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Mitchellh starts a new company: Superlogical"}, {"id": 785594097, "item_id": 49099631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49099631", "by": "vicek22", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use zellij exclusively to work with agents", "excerpt": "I love Ghostty. But I miss out on lots of its features because I use zellij exclusively to work with agents. This sounds exciting and I hope they'll choose some cliff oss license like gitbutler does", "context": "works with coding agents", "use_case": "working with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Superlogical \u2013 Mitchell Hashimoto"}, {"id": 783538017, "item_id": 48971126, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48971126", "by": "benrutter", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use alacritty + zellij and it works fantastic.", "excerpt": "If you're looking for a non-ghostty recommendation (not that I have anything against ghostty) I use alacritty + zellij and it works fantastic. It doesn't seem to impact battery, I certainly get good battery usage on both my work and home laptops.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code uses Bun written in Rust now"}, {"id": 781254402, "item_id": 48828400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48828400", "by": "lemontheme", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to treat Zellij as an OS to build my own IDE in. Now it\u2019s Kitty.", "excerpt": "If you do most of your work on a central server and treat your other devices as thin clients, then (afaik) Tmux/Zellij are the way to go \u2013 not to mention if you want to multiplayer with colleagues. (I know Wezterm has remote session multiplexing in beta, but I\u2019d be surprised if you can re-attach from a different machine.) Lately I\u2019ve been experimenting with embracing the total scriptability of my favorite terminal, K", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr: One terminal to rule them all"}, {"id": 781198256, "item_id": 48824891, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824891", "by": "alasano", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use zellij a lot and created myself a zellij skill for an agent to manage my sessions/layouts in zellij directly.", "excerpt": "I use zellij a lot and created myself a zellij skill for an agent to manage my sessions/layouts in zellij directly. So for a new worktree the agent can create a tab in zellij with multiple panes, properly named etc. It works really nicely. Although since I got the 52 inch Dell monitor I tend to just put everything visible at all once most of the time.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent-managed sessions and layouts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Herdr: One terminal to rule them all"}, {"id": 779475024, "item_id": 48717189, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717189", "by": "joch", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched from tmux to Zellij a while back", "excerpt": "I switched from tmux to Zellij a while back, and lately added a stop hook that sends a terminal ping to the correct tab when the agent is done (and I'm not looking at the tab). It has been pretty convenient so far. Added an example here: https://johnny.chadda.se/zellij-stop-hook/", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer with agent notifications", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "Herdr: Agent multiplexer that lives in your terminal"}, {"id": 778134049, "item_id": 48633378, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48633378", "by": "kjuulh", "date": "2026-06-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've found having another claude chat or whatever use the tool to great success coupled with zellij, but could also be zed, tmux or whatever.", "excerpt": "I've built my own workflow for using agents on git, as i now often have to do changes across repositories, or in the same repository for different tasks. I could use worktrees, but I'd rather invert it, give agents the ability to have a workspace, that they pull repositories into, create branches as they want, commit on main it doesn't matter. the agents don't bother each other, and when i finally have to merge, conf", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Git is forever. I'm building Oak anyways"}, {"id": 777049904, "item_id": 48565619, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48565619", "by": "ghshephard", "date": "2026-06-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love zellij - it feels like the future", "excerpt": "With the one caveat that it does not (yet) support copy/paste buffers or copying from the scroll back buffer. It\u2019s also adamant that you use a mouse to select/copy - anything more complex and you need to pipe everything into neovim (or whatever text editor you use) and do your work there. I love zellij - it feels like the future - but hard to give up keyboard based select/copy and pulling from my scrollback.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "SpaceX to buy Cursor AI coding agent operator Anysphere for $60B"}, {"id": 774660373, "item_id": 48416273, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48416273", "by": "throwaway888abc", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "also replaced Alacritty + Zellij", "excerpt": "Recently ditched VSCODE completely and switched from development on local machine to remote \"vps\" cloud. Currrent setup: Zed + Terminal threads (love this!) + Remote machine Devcontainers + Claude + Pi [1] Zed https://zed.dev/ [2] Terminal threads https://zed.dev/blog/terminal-threads [3] Pi https://pi.dev/ As sort of byproduct also replaced Alacritty + Zellij (i just don't have the need to use more, 3 weeks of new s", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 774625377, "item_id": 48414086, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48414086", "by": "Galanwe", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "script which creates a git worktree + zellij pane with a specific layout", "excerpt": "I have a vibe coded script which creates a git worktree + zellij pane with a specific layout + a virtualenv per feature. The zellij layout includes panes for OpenCode, a shell, a neovim, inotify tests, etc. I switch between zellij sessions during refills.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 774601985, "item_id": 48412624, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48412624", "by": "Decag", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It's a lightweight nodeJS cli that sits in a couple of Zellij panes", "excerpt": "Spent a weekend building a small tool ( sAIdecar ) for my own personal workflow and decided to share it. It's a lightweight nodeJS cli that sits in a couple of Zellij panes It's just a quick scratchpad for the small questions that constantly pop up during the day and don't belong in the main coding agent or a big LLM session It logs everything locally, have a index feature for full-text search and a little TUI for br", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "SAIdecar, for the small questions that don't belong the main agent session"}, {"id": 772328353, "item_id": 48270522, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48270522", "by": "darkteflon", "date": "2026-05-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Blink terminal with Zellij for shared session persistence with my Mac at home.", "excerpt": "I do this with a Nuphy Air 60 v2. I 3d printed a custom slip case for it, to which I stuck a MagSafe sticker ring. I then carry a small MagSafe tripod attached to that. Sit down, take the keyboard from the slip case, slide off the tripod, attach the phone and I\u2019m good to go. Full QMK/VIA support, so I don\u2019t have to go without my beloved home row mods etc. Blink terminal with Zellij for shared session persistence with", "context": "", "use_case": "session persistence", "switched_from": "", "story": "I love my Bluetooth keyboard"}, {"id": 772111888, "item_id": 48256993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48256993", "by": "ramses0", "date": "2026-05-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "none of them clicked in the same way with power, ease, and flexibility that zellij felt like it provided right away.", "excerpt": "https://zellij.dev/tutorials/basic-functionality/ If you're already a tmux expert then zellij is probably no big deal, and the \"written in rust\" part is more of a red-herring than the headline. Firstly, it doesn't conflict with Ctrl-A by default (but I think that's actually `screen`), second it has mouse support, floating window, saved layouts, stacked tabs, session picker/manager, and take a look at the configuratio", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "tmux", "story": "It's time to talk about my writerdeck"}, {"id": 771807841, "item_id": 48237990, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48237990", "by": "desireco42", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I installed Zellij on my server where most of work is happening and local machine and this works well for me.", "excerpt": "I used Superset for quite a while until a month ago. There were some annoying issues, with freezing and terminal not being rendered how it should be. And they did repeated fixes that didn't really solve it. Since I had work to do I moved on. I installed Zellij on my server where most of work is happening and local machine and this works well for me. There are other issues I have now, but overall flow is fairly natura", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing on server", "switched_from": "Superset", "story": "Launch HN: Superset (YC P26) \u2013 IDE for the agents era"}, {"id": 771535265, "item_id": 48220954, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220954", "by": "kloud", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Zellij to get better UX", "excerpt": "Cool project, I like the idea of having tmux-compatible CLI. I used Zellij to get better UX, but many agent tools integrate with tmux. This way agent tools can still integrate tmux as a defacto standard for programmatic interface while having better interface for users. But I wonder if tmux/rmux design is suboptimal since it couples session persistence and window management together. Do you have an opinion the design", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Rmux \u2013 A programmable terminal multiplexer with a Playwright-style SDK"}, {"id": 770890228, "item_id": 48180639, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48180639", "by": "backscratches", "date": "2026-05-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use yazi for a visual filepicker and zellij for tabs.", "excerpt": "I use .MD files, helix terminal editor with a markdown LSP called markdown-oxide that replicates the obsidian feature set (like bidirectional links, tags, making new notes automatically, two keys get you from a in-line footnote to the definition and back again, etc), and rumdl which is a super efficient and customizable markdown linter and formatter (semantic line breaks far the win!) . Since it is all helix I can ju", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}, {"id": 768034816, "item_id": 48002176, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48002176", "by": "samgranieri", "date": "2026-05-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I spend all day in a terminal multiplexer (zellij) with neovim and other splits.", "excerpt": "I spend all day in a terminal multiplexer (zellij) with neovim and other splits. Using things like k9s / btop / lazygit / lazydocker helm / stern / whatever that systemd TUI I saw in here and started and will check out later just keeps me focused in one window, and that\u2019s pretty cool", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why TUIs Are Back"}, {"id": 764201953, "item_id": 47762622, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762622", "by": "ramon156", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still use zellij. I like the scroll info, the default bindings", "excerpt": "I love that most tmux features are programmatic and unix-oriented. > # reload config file (change file location to your the tmux.conf you want to use) > bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf Just seems fun. That said, I still use zellij. I like the scroll info, the default bindings, and the fact it plays nicely with my setup of fish+alac. I might swap alacritty with ghostty at some point, but this works for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Make Tmux Pretty and Usable"}, {"id": 761892449, "item_id": 47618278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618278", "by": "nazarewk", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have switched to Helix inside Zellij + Jujutsu instead of git and not really looking back after.", "excerpt": "I was running JetBrains suite since ~2010, but late 2025 I have switched to Helix inside Zellij + Jujutsu instead of git and not really looking back after. Took some getting used to, sometimes I miss the GUI, debugger and some of the more advanced tools, but I generally feel a lot more productive (especially in Nix/Go) with added responsiveness, can easily work on a much bulkier machine over SSH and have a real chanc", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your dev set up like?"}, {"id": 750838881, "item_id": 46927430, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46927430", "by": "maurizzzio", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "compare", "quote": "It fulfilled my requirements for a terminal multiplexer, but I found some things annoying", "excerpt": "I used Zellij consistently for a few weeks as a possible alternative to Tmux. It fulfilled my requirements for a terminal multiplexer, but I found some things annoying and switched back to Tmux. I\u2019m very happy with Tmux for now.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux to Zellij (and Back)"}, {"id": 744327137, "item_id": 46520446, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46520446", "by": "kator", "date": "2026-01-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Terminus with Zellij and keep about 8 sessions going", "excerpt": "I use Terminus with Zellij and keep about 8 sessions going with a combination of Claude and Codex, and once in a while, Gemini. It's great when you're sitting in a docotor's office lobby bored out of your skull and when you get back to your desk you just join the session and it's all right there.", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent terminal sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone"}, {"id": 743997377, "item_id": 46499836, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499836", "by": "bargainbin", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZelliJ really allows you to setup some IDE features", "excerpt": "I switched to Helix and ZelliJ, ZelliJ really allows you to setup some IDE features and helix is like the surface layer of Vi. Combined it becomes a very powerful setup!", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing, IDE features", "switched_from": "", "story": "I switched from VSCode to Zed"}, {"id": 739792177, "item_id": 46237011, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237011", "by": "benrutter", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The software I use everyday, like Cron (named after a greek god of time); Python (named after a comedy act) and Zellij (names after a tiling craft)", "excerpt": "> Our field deserves better than a zoo of random nouns masquerading as professional nomenclature. Clarity isn\u2019t boring, it\u2019s respect for your users\u2019 time and cognitive resources. I felt a little guilty at first, I maintain a project called Wimsey (it's a data testing library but you couldn't guess that) and at work my team regularly enjoys fun/silly names. Trying to defend myself, I was thinking about various logical", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools"}, {"id": 738686304, "item_id": 46167894, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167894", "by": "mhitza", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The landing page does a bad job at explaining what it is", "excerpt": "The landing page does a bad job at explaining what it is, same with the first page of the documentation. I get it from the other comments that it's a terminal multiplexer, and considered an alternative to tmux. But tmux and screen are well established, and should take the opportunity to explain in what way it is different from those.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal multiplexer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included"}, {"id": 738675872, "item_id": 46167242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167242", "by": "kstrauser", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I freaking love Zellij.", "excerpt": "An endorsement: I freaking love Zellij. I mainly use it like one might use Tmux, to keep remote sessions alive so I can reconnect to them from another host than where I began the session: * Ssh in to myserver.cloud from my laptop. Run Zellij. Fire off various long-running processes in multiple tabs. * On my commute home, ssh in from my phone, run `zellij attach`, and check on the status of those processes. * Once hom", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent remote terminal sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included"}]}