head to head · open source
Zellij vs iTerm 2
Zellij has 35,445 GitHub stars, 1,452 forks, 1,915 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. iTerm 2 has 18,067 stars, 1,496 forks, 73 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zellij leads on adoption by 96% (35,445 vs 18,067 stars). Zellij is written in Rust under MIT; iTerm 2 is written in Objective-C under GPL-2.0. Zellij has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, iTerm 2 8%. iTerm 2 was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | iTerm 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 18K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Objective-C |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 iTerm 2 if
- You want the iTerm 2 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Objective-C
- You evaluated both and iTerm 2 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 iTerm 2
iTerm 2 is a terminal emulator for macOS, written in Objective C and licensed under GPL 2.0. It replaces the default macOS terminal with an interface for shells, tabs, panes, and remote sessions. The project lives in the macOS developer tools ecosystem, where command line work, SSH sessions, tmux sessions, and shell history need one persistent client.
read the full iTerm 2 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zellij or iTerm 2 more popular?
Zellij has 35,445 GitHub stars and iTerm 2 has 18,067. Zellij has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zellij and iTerm 2 free?
Both are open source. Zellij is licensed under MIT and iTerm 2 under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zellij and iTerm 2?
Zellij is written in Rust and iTerm 2 in Objective-C. 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 iTerm 2?
Choose Zellij if you want the larger community (35,445 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose iTerm 2 if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.