head to head · open source
Warp vs Zellij
Warp has 65,830 GitHub stars, 5,752 forks, 5,218 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zellij has 35,918 stars, 1,518 forks, 1,915 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Warp leads on adoption by 83% (65,830 vs 35,918 stars). Warp is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Zellij is written in Rust under MIT. Warp has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Zellij 4%. Warp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (terminal), 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
| Warp | Zellij | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 36K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Warp if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 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 Warp
Website · Code · Agents · Terminal · Drive · Docs · How Warp Works [!NOTE] OpenAI is the founding sponsor of the new, open source Warp repository, and the new agentic management workflows are powered by GPT models. About Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal. Use Warp's built in coding agent, or bring your own CLI agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and others). Installation You can download Warp and read our docs for platform specific instructions. Warp Contributions Overview Dashboard Explore build.warp.dev to: Watch thousands of Warp Factory agents triage issues, write specs…
About Zellij
Zellij [ Installation ] [ Screencasts & Tutorials ] [ Configuration ] [ Layouts ] [ FAQ ] What is this? Zellij is a workspace aimed at developers, ops oriented people and anyone who loves the terminal. Similar programs are sometimes called "Terminal Multiplexers". Zellij is designed around the philosophy that one must not sacrifice simplicity for power, taking pride in its great experience out of the box as well as the advanced features it places at its users' fingertips. Zellij is geared toward beginner and power users alike allowing deep customizability, personal automation through layouts, true multiplayer…
read the full Zellij overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Warp or Zellij more popular?
Warp has 65,830 GitHub stars and Zellij has 35,918. Warp has the larger community by that measure.
Are Warp and Zellij free?
Both are open source. Warp is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Zellij under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Warp and Zellij?
Warp 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, Warp or Zellij?
Choose Warp if you want the larger community (65,830 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Zellij if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.