# Herdr 232 Hacker News commenters recommended Herdr and 68 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.04 years (18 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A terminal multiplexer for running many coding agents, with status indicators, notifications, remote sessions and worktree support; some worry about its VC backing and future lock-in. ## Why people recommend it - Shows which agents need attention (5 comments): "I started using this today and am really enjoying the notifications when agents are awaiting input, and the status indicators!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48722336)) "a fairly polished agentic multiplexer TUI, can easily spawn or destroy windows based on subagent activity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49100596)) "When running many agents something like the "idle/working workstreams" gutter is honestly helpful though." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49105536)) - Great tmux alternative even without AI (4 comments): "I actually enjoy herdr a lot, and not just for agent management but the whole multiplexer is plenty powerful defaults" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49653070)) "It worked out of the box, has actually good, working mouse support, quickly ships fixes, and the defaults are sane" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824880)) "To me herdr feels more like a modern alternative to tmux or zellij with the agent features being a nice add on." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49106521)) - Seamless remote and SSH sessions (4 comments): "it is honestly fantastic and ever since they added the ability to access multiple ssh machines from one herdr session I just live inside it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50300497)) "the main reason is the remote sessions. I can copy and paste text and files in a remote session with no extra config, it's amazing!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50302161)) "it's been really nice for a specific use case: running agents locally alongside agents in a remote sandbox environment" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48720581)) - Handles multiple projects and worktrees (3 comments): "it shines when you are working with multiple projects, with multiple worktrees, and multiple agents within those projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50302783)) "lets me have the same project worked on side by side by different models, each in its own git worktree" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50216447)) "just having workrees with a single click and a visual tree/children hierarchy was the killer feature" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49209319)) ## What people warn about - VC backing raises lock-in fears (2 comments): "I am wary of VC backed developer tools that seek to innovate in well established open source niches." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49202376)) "Getting locked into a product that is pressured to achieve VC returns and thus becomes enshittified." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50303732)) - Little gain over existing Ghostty setup (2 comments): "bounced after like a week because ghostty + notifications + harness extensions gave me enough that it wasnt worth learning the new thing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50303907)) "I don't see much benefit over herdr in Terminal/Ghostty, and I need to reconfigure my agents to make it work too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50301700)) - Confusing to learn and set up (2 comments): "I had no idea how to interact with it. I also couldn't get two other windows to "join" the same herdr session" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50301261)) "the fork from the original herdr tui (without any explanation of the plan or reasons) is quite confusing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50306722)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [tmux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tmux.md): 411 recommend - [Zellij](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zellij.md): 93 recommend - [GNU Screen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnu-screen.md): 33 recommend - [zmx](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zmx.md): 23 recommend - [Rex by Superlogical](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rex.md): 21 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Herdr", https://hackerapproved.com/p/herdr/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).