zellij-org/zellij

What it is

Zellij is a terminal workspace, in the same broad category as tmux or screen, aimed at developers, ops people and terminal enthusiasts. It combines pane management with layouts for repeatable workspace setups, true multiplayer collaboration, floating and stacked panes, and a WebAssembly plugin system that accepts plugins written in any language that compiles to Wasm. A built-in web client makes the terminal optional for attached users. The project is written in Rust and released under the MIT license.

Getting started

Install through your operating system's package when one is available, or download a prebuilt binary from the latest release and put it on your $PATH. Compiling from crates.io is also supported:

cargo install --locked zellij

If you want to try it before installing, the project provides a launch script:

bash <(curl -L https://zellij.dev/launch)

For fish or xonsh, run that command through bash -c. After launching, start sessions and manage panes; configuration lives in the configuration documentation and reusable workspace definitions in the layout documentation. Installation instructions per platform are collected on the installation page, and guided material is available in the screencasts and tutorials.

Development and constraints

Building from source requires cloning the repository and using the project's xtask commands: cargo xtask run for a debug build and cargo xtask test for the test suite; other build commands are listed in CONTRIBUTING.md. The README explicitly warns against installing from the main branch, which carries pre-release code that may be broken and can corrupt the cache used by released versions. Use the latest release for normal work. Keybindings are modal, and at least one early user reported needing more keypresses than expected compared with tmux (comment); workflows may differ for people coming from other multiplexers. The README notes that open and closed issues reflect user reports and do not by themselves establish a bug.

HotRepo's take

Zellij appeared in the Rust daily ranking on 2026-11-12 at second place with 34 stars gained that day, alongside 36,023 total stars and 1,534 forks. Discussion around the project has been sparse in volume but includes concrete usage: one commenter described running it on a remote cloud server to watch parallel downloads in separate panes and keep commands alive after an SSH disconnect (comment). That fits the project's stated role as a persistent terminal workspace rather than a terminal emulator, a distinction also raised in the same thread (reply). The remaining question for new users is mostly workflow fit: the modal keybinding model is the main point of friction surfaced in available discussion.