head to head · open source
Zellij vs WezTerm
Zellij has 35,447 GitHub stars, 1,452 forks, 1,915 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. WezTerm has 28,933 stars, 1,744 forks, 1,849 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Zellij leads on adoption by 23% (35,447 vs 28,933 stars). Zellij is written in Rust under MIT; WezTerm is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Zellij has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, WezTerm 6%. WezTerm 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
| Zellij | WezTerm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 29K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zellij if
- You weight community size — 35K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick WezTerm if
- You want the WezTerm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and WezTerm fits your workflow better
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 →
About WezTerm
WezTerm is a GPU accelerated, cross platform terminal emulator and multiplexer written by @wez in Rust, intended for developers and terminal users who want one terminal configuration and one multiplexing model across every operating system they work on.
read the full WezTerm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zellij or WezTerm more popular?
Zellij has 35,447 GitHub stars and WezTerm has 28,933. Zellij has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zellij and WezTerm free?
Both are open source. Zellij is licensed under MIT, and WezTerm has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zellij and WezTerm?
Zellij is written in Rust and WezTerm 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, Zellij or WezTerm?
Choose Zellij if you want the larger community (35,447 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose WezTerm if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.