head to head · open source
herdr vs Zellij
herdr has 39,695 GitHub stars, 2,992 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped today. Zellij has 35,478 stars, 1,456 forks, 1,915 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. herdr leads on adoption by 12% (39,695 vs 35,478 stars). herdr is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Zellij is written in Rust under MIT. herdr has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Zellij 4%. herdr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (multiplexer), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| herdr | Zellij | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 35K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick herdr if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Zellij if
- You want the Zellij feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Zellij fits your workflow better
About herdr
herdr is a terminal first runtime for coding agents — a single Rust binary that owns the terminals in which tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and Grok run, aimed at developers who keep agents working across local and remote machines and want those sessions to survive a lost SSH connection or a closed client.
read the full herdr overview →
About Zellij
Zellij is a terminal workspace and multiplexer written in Rust that gives developers, operations engineers, and anyone who loves the terminal built in layouts, tabs, panes, and a WebAssembly plugin system, built so that simplicity and power do not have to be traded against each other.
read the full Zellij overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is herdr or Zellij more popular?
herdr has 39,695 GitHub stars and Zellij has 35,478. herdr has the larger community by that measure.
Are herdr and Zellij free?
Both are open source. herdr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zellij under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between herdr and Zellij?
herdr is written in Rust and Zellij in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, herdr or Zellij?
Choose herdr if you want the larger community (39,695 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zellij if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.