Zellij review: the terminal multiplexer for people who gave up on tmux

I've been missing out on this terminal upgrade for years Amir Bohlooli / MUO By  Amir Bohlooli Published May 30, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT Amir is the Segment Lead for Software at MUO. He's a PharmD student who loves looking at numbers and spreadsheets. Inspired by his father's hobbies, Amir developed a knack for DIY projects and built his first quadcopter in high school. At 18, he began writing about 3D printing, and now contributes to MUO where he writes and edits productivity tools, AI and LLMs, spreadsheets, self-hosting, DIY projects, and a lot more. Amir also enjoys creating music, although its categorization as such remains open to interpretation. In addition to his academic pursuits, Amir is an avid gamer, car enthusiast, and proud owner of a 1993 Mitsubishi Galant. Sign in to your MakeUseOf account Add Us On follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap There's so much you can do with a terminal on any platform. But despite using the command line extensively, I have been avoiding a particular category of productivity tools, and I feel that most people have too. Terminal multiplexers. A terminal multiplexer, essentially, lets you open multiple terminal panes and sessions inside a single terminal window. It sounds similar to opening new tabs in Powershell, but, supposedly, it's much more than that, and much better, when you start using one. The word "terminal multiplexer" is almost synonymous with "Tmux." But, this writing here isn't about Tmux. It's about something better. Related 5 programs you need to know about as a Linux user Linux is more than a backup OS, and these programs prove it. Posts 5 By  Yadullah Abidi Meet Zellij A friendly and capable multiplexer With Zellij installed, you just type zellij into your terminal and suddenly your terminal gets a glow-up. But it still behaves like a normal te