cmux
Hacker ApprovedRanked 8 of 40 terminal emulators by recommenders
Ghostty-based terminal with project workspaces and notifications, liked for running many AI coding agents at once; critics find it weak over SSH and resource-heavy.
Ghostty-based terminal with project workspaces and notifications, liked for running many AI coding agents at once; critics find it weak over SSH and resource-heavy.
63 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 47
- criticize it
- 16
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 month
Median of the 5 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 47 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Groups work by project
“I like tabbed terminals on macOS grouped by project, saves messing with our daft window management.”
Comment from 7 Aug 2026 in “Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open” “the main reason I love cmux is how can I manage my projects into folders”
Comment from 7 Aug 2026 in “Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open” “I like tabbed terminals on macOS grouped by project”
Comment from 7 Aug 2026 in “Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open” - Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Ledge.sh – Runnable Markdown Notes”
Manages many agent sessions
“having workspaces with colors and todos that survive a refresh makes it worth it if you run a bunch of agents at one time”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling” “Use cmux or conductor to manage multiple instances of Claude Code”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What is the AI setup for an experienced dev starting on a new project?” “Cmux was perfect for tons of ClaudeCode/Codex instances.”
Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)” - Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Task Paralysis and AI”
Quality-of-life gains over basic terminals
“They have many quality of life improvements over the basic terminal.”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “macOS 27 Golden Gate – Review” “a ghostty based terminal that adds some bells and whistles”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “SpaceX to buy Cursor AI coding agent operator Anysphere for $60B” “Very happy after a few days switching from ghostty to cmux”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Ghostty – Terminal Emulator” Good native agent notifications
“CMux has good native AI Agent notifications. So it works well in that capacity too.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop” “Cmux notifications does this too”
Comment from 2 Jul 2026 on Hacker News
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Tab and pane behavior annoyances
“I like it. One thing I'd like to disable is the reordering of tab groups.”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Ghostty-based terminal with vertical tabs and notifications” “the pane behavior you're describing is my biggest gripe”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Open Source 'Conductor + Ghostty'” “but I didn't like they way it did tabs”
Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Open Source 'Conductor + Ghostty'” Bugs and unreliable behavior
“its unreliability, high memory and CPU usage and a bunch of bugs”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Horizon – GPU-accelerated infinite-canvas terminal in Rust” “I had tons of problem with fonts or scrolling behaviors”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)” “cmux didn't run well on my Ubuntu setup”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Neptune, a free and open-source terminal built in Rust” High memory and CPU use
“its unreliability, high memory and CPU usage and a bunch of bugs”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Horizon – GPU-accelerated infinite-canvas terminal in Rust” “We fixed many RAM usage issues (latest version is 0.64.22)”
Comment from 7 Aug 2026 in “Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open” Not a replacement for tmux
“cmux isn't an alternative to tmux, as it can't attach to/detach from sessions”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Make Tmux Pretty and Usable” “It's false advertising to say it's like tmux.”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Make Tmux Pretty and Usable”
Other terminal emulators people recommend
The four most recommended other terminal emulators, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghostty | 401 | 158 | 72% | 12 | 3 mo22 owners | Approved |
| Termux | 188 | 31 | 86% | 12 | 1 yr6 owners | Approved |
| iTerm2 | 95 | 69 | 58% | 12 | 10 yrs4 owners | — |
| Warp terminal | 84 | 86 | 49% | 11 | 1 yr5 owners | — |
| cmuxThis page | 47 | 16 | 75% | 9 | 1 mo5 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 67 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I have worked on its tmux mode a bunch, and I find it good now.”
“cmux is indeed quite good but it has become a HYDRA”
“venture-backed "agentic" terminals and editors, such as Herdr, cmux, and many others”
“having workspaces with colors and todos that survive a refresh makes it worth it if you run a bunch of agents at one time”
“cmux didn't run well on my Ubuntu setup”
“I was inspired by how much cmux helped me organize my terminals”
“CMux has good native AI Agent notifications. So it works well in that capacity too.”
“They have many quality of life improvements over the basic terminal.”
“I really like what herdr, cmux and others are doing in this space”
“the main reason I love cmux is how can I manage my projects into folders”
“We fixed many RAM usage issues (latest version is 0.64.22)”
“I like tabbed terminals on macOS grouped by project”
“I like tabbed terminals on macOS grouped by project, saves messing with our daft window management.”
“I'm currently using CMUX, and been pretty happy with it it at this time”
“Hubble+cmux gets me close to the agentic IDE I'm working towards.”
“With cmux your agents can access the browser, spawn full shells, and you aren't locked-in to a specific vendor.”
“I've been using cmux for a long time too but am pretty happy with it.”
“Cmux notifications does this too”
“runs nicely over ssh + tmux with native tabs”
“a ghostty based terminal that adds some bells and whistles”
“Use cmux or conductor to manage multiple instances of Claude Code”
“Cmux was perfect for tons of ClaudeCode/Codex instances.”
“if you WANT to do everythign on your mac, cmux is fantastic. its just not designed with the remote ssh control use case in mind.”
“That helps keeping track of everything I'm working on”
“Seems to fit a good balance for the way I want to use my terminal”
“i enjoy cmux and wanted its workspace management integrated remotely”
“It's false advertising to say it's like tmux.”
“cmux isn't an alternative to tmux, as it can't attach to/detach from sessions”
“I had tons of problem with fonts or scrolling behaviors”
“I can now forget my Mac again because of cmux.”
“the pane behavior you're describing is my biggest gripe”
“but I didn't like they way it did tabs”
“I've using this combo for the past month and is awesome.”
“a bit more powerful and intuitive since you can do things like drag them”
“its unreliability, high memory and CPU usage and a bunch of bugs”
“Very happy after a few days switching from ghostty to cmux”
“I like it. One thing I'd like to disable is the reordering of tab groups.”
“It's not obvious/easy to open browser dev tools”
“`cmux --help` can automate all parts of cmux.”
“I've been using this for the past few months and have experienced a monstrous increase in output”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.