zellij: Organize Terminal Work in a Multiplexer

Overview

Zellij is a terminal multiplexer that organizes shell sessions and other terminal applications into a persistent workspace. It helps people who work across multiple commands or projects manage them together instead of juggling separate terminal windows.

It combines an out-of-the-box interface with customization for more involved workflows. It is a good fit for terminal-focused developers and operations teams who want layouts, pane controls, or collaborative sessions in one workspace.

Key Features

• Arrange work in panes and tabs, including floating and stacked panes.
• Define reusable workspace arrangements with layouts.
• Customize behavior and appearance through configuration.
• Collaborate in multiplayer sessions.
• Extend the workspace with plugins written in languages that compile to WebAssembly.
• Connect through a built-in web client, without requiring a terminal client.

Use Cases

• Developers can keep an editor, test commands, and application logs together while working on a project.
• Operations-oriented users can organize several shell sessions for monitoring or administration tasks.
• Teams can use multiplayer sessions to work together in a shared terminal workspace.
• Users with repeatable project setups can use layouts to recreate their preferred arrangement of panes and tabs.

Project Facts

• Language: Rust
• License: MIT
• Stars: 35.6k
• Forks: 1.5k
• Topics: multiplexer, terminal, workspace
• Archived: No

Getting Started

Install with Cargo:

cargo install --locked zellij

See the README and installation documentation for other installation options and setup details.

Alternatives

• sshx: sshx shares a live terminal through a web link for remote collaboration, while Zellij organizes local terminal work into panes and tabs.

Considerations

Zellij is designed for terminal-based work, so it may not suit workflows centered on graphical applications. Installing from the main branch is not recommended by the project because it contains pre-release code and may be broken or affect the cache used by future versions. The repository notes that reported issues do not necessarily indicate confirmed software bugs.