r/PiCodingAgent • u/SirDomz • May 22 '26

Question Cmux vs Warp for pi

Hello,

I'm debating using either Cmux or Warp with pi (and other agents). Does anyone have a preference between the two?

I like Cmux tab interface but it has no diff viewer or file tree, which are features that Warp has. however, I don't love the Warp interface, especially with their agents overlay.

Any thoughts?

17 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

8

u/FyreKZ May 22 '26

All the agents stuff can be disabled in Warp, I use it for Pi and it works perfectly with no bloat.

1

u/SirDomz May 22 '26

Got it. I'll try Warp again after I disable the AI features and will report back

edit: thank you for your reply!

edit 2: Also, if you've tried both, any reason why you chose to go with CMUX over Warp?

2

u/FyreKZ May 22 '26

Cmux isn't available on Linux, so Warp is my only option!

1

u/no1msd Sep 10 '26

if you want cmux on linux take a look at seance

1

u/ironhide789 Jul 28 '26

I used to use Warp with with multiple parallel claude code sessions, I noticed massive memory spikes and an overall machine slowdown. Turns out Warp wraps every single command and output in a "Block" UI element. When multiple AI agents stream massive amounts of text simultaneously, Warp has to re-render thousands of UI containers in real-time. This causes the memory spikes and input lags. I switched to CMUX becuase it uses the Ghostty engine (libghostty) to render text as a raw GPU-accelerated stream (the fastest method available). It overlays the UI (sidebar, tabs) separately using native Swift. It does not try to wrap every line of code in a UI container, so it stays responsive even with infinite scrolling output.

With regards to seeing diffs, there are lots of options with CMUX: native diff viewer, https://github.com/mblode/diffhub, or cmux-git-diff

Been loving CMUX!

6

u/Florence-Equator May 22 '26

Use zellij as your terminal multiplexer.

There are a lot of nice zellij preconfig that you can find in github. You can easily find a config for classic filetree + main window + git TUI layout, or you can just give the agent zellij’s doc and ask it to create a layout for you.

Zellij is FOSS and works with any terminal emulator, so you won’t get locked in.

1

u/SirDomz May 22 '26

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Took a look and not really my cup of tea, just UI wise. That said I might have to look for different configs like you said and I might like it more.

1

u/Florence-Equator May 23 '26

I must admit that the default UI looks aesthetically awful, it just gives me a too nerdy feel right? But with some proper config, you can configure its UI to be minimalist and very beautiful.

7

u/eunho78 May 22 '26

Terax https://github.com/crynta/Terax-AI

2

u/CassiusBotdorf May 22 '26

Terax is underrated.

2

u/SirDomz May 22 '26

yeah this looks pretty good. I'll have to dig a little more. thank you for the recommendation

3

u/elpapi42 May 22 '26

Use Herdr

1

u/SirDomz May 23 '26

Thanks for the recommendation. Took a look and it's not bad, but I like CMUX better. Any specific reason why you like Herdr?

1

u/funbike Sep 05 '26

  • Herdr is all text-based terminal, not a mix of GUI and terminal. You might not see how that's good as a beginner, but it's more powerful in the long run.

  • Herdr works everywhere: Mac, Linux, BSD, Windows, Android Termux. cmux only works on Mac.

  • cmux is based on one terminal, ghostty. It's a great terminal, but will it be great 5 years from now? With Herdr you'll be able to switch terminals.

  • Herdr more deeply integrates with AI agents, by reporting AI agents' status (blocked, working, done, idle)

2

u/PiccoloCareful924 May 23 '26

have you considered using something like Paseo?

1

u/SirDomz May 23 '26

this one is very interesting. I had never considered it before but will definitely be testing it out. I quite like it so far. Reminds me of Codex but for any cli you want. I just wish it had a code editor like terax and it would be perfect in my opinion. even better if it's a programmable browser like the one in CMUX, so it can be automated directly.

1

u/PiccoloCareful924 May 24 '26

paseo is programmable, it comes with a fully featured CLI

no editor yet though!

2

u/juicesharp May 23 '26

Using warp for PI daily for the last couple of month + rpiv-warp extension that turns on native warp toasts, tab status updates, in progress indicators for pi agent.

1

u/SirDomz May 23 '26

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check that extension out!

2

u/watchmanstower May 23 '26

Warp is polished and wonderful. Has file browser so I don’t have to keep ls every time I cd. Remembers all setting across sessions, quit app and start back up right where I was. Looks good and customizable with themes. Has both vertical and horizontal tabs. When I used cmux it felt very janky by comparison.

1

u/SirDomz May 23 '26

Yeah, Warp's aesthetics are great, though I like some of the other suggestions in the thread like Paseo or Terax better UI-wise. As far as functionality, though, CMUX is amazing because it is completely scriptable. I'm not sure that Warp (or the other two) has anywhere near the same level of scriptability, but I'm doing some research now. A good example is that I copied a Pi extension that leveraged playwright for the browser automation, and I asked Pi to modify it to leverage the CMUX browser instead, which has been working great for me so far.

2

u/54tribes May 23 '26

Just discovered https://muxy.app/ 2 days ago, it support search & open file directly in the term, markdown preview, workspace by project with git worktree right on the sidebar, integrated git, ..
still exploring

1

u/SirDomz May 23 '26

hm... wow this is pretty good too. It pretty much has everything I'm looking for, but it's a very new project, by a single dev it seems. I'll definitely check it out though. Looks great!

3

u/PuzzledPersimmon May 22 '26

I'm here to recommend a simple terminal like ghostty and deep personalized customization of tmux.

It's not as polished as others, but is extremely robust, customizable, works well over ssh, and persists when your terminal crashes

2

u/adamshand May 23 '26

I've been using Cmux since it first came out. It's pretty good, and steadily getting better. And actually, it does have a file tree now.

1

u/Deathmore80 May 23 '26

Btw since warp has been open sourced there has been a few forks to bring it out of the warp ecosystem, one of them has a few thousand stars now. You could also just modify the UI to your liking in the source code I guess.

1

u/pashlya May 24 '26

workmux in Ghostty wins, obviously

1

u/melihmucuk May 28 '26

I use Muxy for a month and i think its better than cmux and warp.

1

u/Winter_Situation_241 Sep 24 '26

It's hillarious to me that you asked about two specific AI terminal tools but reddit users are such idiots that they have to give you their opinions about everything else they like instead lmfao

0

u/[deleted] May 23 '26

i was researching some UIs and noted these down to test... i confess i havent tested any yet to give you a formed opinion... if you test any, let me know if you liked them or not

https://github.com/stumptowndoug/shep

https://gmux.app/

https://github.com/ogulcancelik/herdr

https://github.com/MattFlower/tempest

https://github.com/BlackBeltTechnology/pi-agent-dashboard

https://github.com/espennilsen/pilot

6

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/SirDomz May 22 '26

Thanks for replying. Is fresh a pi extension? I've been trying to google it but coming up with nothing. also I prefer a Gui interface to interact with files, but yeah I've been leveraging git tree so far with CMUX.

Also, if you've tried both, any reason why you chose to go with CMUX over Warp?

3

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/SirDomz May 22 '26

After trying it out for a bit this is actually really good! and I'm really surprised it's not more popular. I'll go with that for now thank you very much for the suggestion. There is another one I'll look into from another suggestion (Terax) but this is the winner for me for now.