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They multiplex agents on a box.
We multiplex your fleet.
A new wave of tools has made single-machine agent work genuinely good — agent-aware multiplexers, native agent terminals, free mobile clients. dev-mux answers the question that starts where one box ends: which of my agents, across every repo and machine I own, needs me right now? One live cockpit over the whole fleet, steerable from a browser, a terminal, an iPhone, or a pair of glasses.
The stack has layers
Most "X vs Y" confusion here is two products living on different layers. From the bottom up: the terminal emulator draws text (Ghostty, Kitty, iTerm2); the multiplexer keeps sessions alive and splits screens — classically tmux, soon Superlogical, and now agent-aware takes like herdr and cmux; a client gets you to a machine (SSH, Moshi, Happy); and the fleet layer watches all of it at once. dev-mux is the fleet layer. It doesn't replace what's below it — it runs on plain SSH + tmux, on machines you already own.
At a glance
Claims reflect each product's public state as of July 31, 2026. This space moves fast — if something here has gone stale, tell us and we'll fix it.
| dev-mux | tmux / Zellij | Superlogical | Happy | Moshi | herdr / cmux | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Fleet control plane for AI coding agents | Terminal multiplexer | Next-gen multiplexer (libghostty) | Free mobile/web client for Claude Code & Codex | Mobile terminal client (iOS/Android) | Agent multiplexers for one box |
| Scope | Every machine, repo, and agent you own | One machine | Sessions across environments (announced) | Your sessions, synced to your phone | One connection to one machine at a time | One machine |
| Agent awareness | First-class: attention detection, hook signals, interrupt/steer, usage | None | Deliberately none ("nothing about it is agent specific") | Push on approvals, remote approve/deny, spawn from phone | Agent monitoring + approvals on the session you're viewing | Semantic agent state (blocked / working / done), attention cues |
| Surfaces | Browser, TUI, iOS, G2 glasses, Telegram | Your terminal | macOS/iOS + web (first releases) | iPhone, Android, web | iPhone, iPad, Android | Your terminal / macOS (+ iOS mirror) |
| What a machine needs | bash 3.2 + tmux + git (no smart client) | tmux/zellij installed | libghostty-compliant client (or compat mode) | Their CLI wrapper + daemon (Node 20+) | An SSH server | The tool installed |
| Where your code runs | Your machines; hub never stores code | Your machine | TBD (pre-beta) | Your machines; E2E-encrypted third-party relay between | Your machine (direct connection) | Your machine |
| Pricing | Solo $25/mo · Team $100/mo · Custom | Free, open source | Unannounced (waitlist) | Free (MIT), no paid tier | Free tier · Pro $7.99/mo · $199 lifetime | Free / open source |
| Status | Live with design partners | Mature | Pre-beta (announced 2026-07-29) | Shipping, very active | Shipping | Shipping, fast-moving |
The honest per-tool read
Deep dives: dev-mux vs Happy · dev-mux vs Omnara · dev-mux vs herdr · more coming.
tmux & Zellij — the substrate
Not competitors: dev-mux runs on tmux. tmux is what keeps a session alive on one box; dev-mux is what makes thirty sessions across ten boxes legible. If you're happy on one machine with a handful of panes, tmux alone is genuinely fine — the fleet layer earns its keep when the tabs outgrow your working memory.
Superlogical — a better multiplexer layer
Mitchell Hashimoto's new company is rebuilding the multiplexer itself on libghostty — state-snapshot attach, raw byte streaming to smart clients, per-client scrollback, native apps. Its own framing: "less AI-focused, less opinionated, more of a platform… nothing about it is agent specific."
What they'll do better: raw terminal mechanics. Their architecture eliminates shared-viewport annoyances tmux can't, and the rendering pedigree is world-class.
What they're explicitly not doing is the agent layer — knowing that spoke 7's Claude is blocked on an approval while spoke 3 just finished its tests. That's dev-mux. If Superlogical ships, it's a candidate substrate under dev-mux, the way tmux is today.
Happy — free mobile control for Claude Code
Happy is open source (MIT, ~23k GitHub stars) and genuinely free: a CLI wrapper plus a per-machine daemon sync your Claude Code and Codex sessions through a zero-knowledge, end-to-end-encrypted relay to iPhone, Android, or the web — push notifications on approvals, remote approve/deny, even spawning new sessions from your phone.
What it does better: if all you need is to steer a couple of sessions from your phone, it's free, encrypted, and good at exactly that.
The difference is client vs infrastructure. Happy syncs sessions that live inside its own CLI wrapper; it doesn't adopt your existing tmux sessions, has no fleet map, no freshness signal (a dead daemon just goes quiet — dev-mux flags stale state within seconds), no machine health or usage tracking, no team model, and its relay is third-party infrastructure rather than your own tailnet. A synced client tells you what your phone is looking at; a control plane tells you the state of everything, whether you're looking or not. Full comparison →
Moshi — a great phone-to-machine terminal
Moshi is a native mobile terminal: SSH/Mosh straight from your iPhone or iPad into your machine, with agent notifications, approvals, and dictation. No relay, free tier, Pro at $7.99/mo.
What it does better: it's a lovely, inexpensive native terminal for one machine at a time, with deep iOS polish (Dynamic Island, Watch, Face ID).
The difference is direction: Moshi is a client you point at a machine; dev-mux is a control plane that watches all of them — a hub keeps a live, freshness-aware map of every agent even when your phone is in your pocket, and the same fleet state renders on web, TUI, iOS, and glasses. They can even compose: a mobile terminal can SSH into a dev-mux hub like any other device.
herdr — tmux for coding agents, on one box
herdr is the breakout agent multiplexer of 2026 — roughly 23k GitHub stars in its first months. It replaces tmux with an agent-native workspace: a semantic sidebar of every agent's state (blocked, working, done, idle), sane keybindings, and modern protocol support. On a single machine, it's the sharpest agent workspace in the field.
What it does better: the in-terminal, one-box agent experience. If your whole world is one dev server, herdr is a genuine upgrade over tmux for agent work.
dev-mux operates one layer up: the fleet. A hub that's awake when your terminal isn't, a freshness-aware map across every machine, machine health, usage, and surfaces beyond the terminal. The fleet layer is designed to sit above a box-level multiplexer — tmux today — not to replace your workspace. Full comparison →
cmux — a native agent terminal for your Mac
cmux (by Manaflow, YC S24) is a native macOS agent terminal that embeds libghostty for rendering — attention cues when an agent needs you, an embedded browser, and an iOS app that mirrors your Mac. It's very much agent-specific, and very much single-Mac.
What it does better: a polished, native parallel-agent experience on the machine in front of you.
The seam is the same as herdr's: cmux is your Mac; dev-mux is every machine you own, from a cloud VM to a Raspberry Pi, watched by a hub that doesn't sleep when your laptop lid closes.
What only dev-mux does today
- A fleet, not a box — hub-and-spoke over your own Tailscale tailnet; one cockpit across every machine, from cloud VMs to Raspberry Pis.
- Attention detection wired into the agent — Claude Code hooks emit signals (waiting on approval, done, erroring), so the cockpit shows who needs you, not just who's running.
- Freshness-honest fleet state — every view carries staleness, so a dead poller never masquerades as a healthy fleet.
- Interrupt and steer from anywhere — approve, redirect, or kill an agent from the browser, the TUI, an iPhone, or Even Realities G2 glasses.
- A spoke floor of bash 3.2 + tmux + git — old MacBooks, Raspberry Pis, LXC containers, and cloud VMs all join the same fleet. No smart client, wrapper, or daemon runtime required.
- Your perimeter, end to end — traffic rides your own Tailscale (WireGuard) tailnet; the hub never stores your code.
Common questions
Is dev-mux a tmux replacement?
No — it's built on tmux and plain SSH. dev-mux adds the fleet layer: one cockpit across every machine, attention signals, and multi-surface access. Your muscle memory and dotfiles survive intact.
Happy is free — why pay for dev-mux?
Because they're different layers. Happy is a very good free client for syncing agent sessions to your phone. dev-mux is infrastructure: an always-on hub with a freshness-aware map of every machine and agent, tmux-native persistence (it adopts sessions you already have), machine health and usage, team access, and surfaces from browser to glasses — over your own tailnet, not a third-party relay. If a phone window onto a couple of sessions is enough, use Happy; when you're operating a fleet, that's us.
Should I wait for Superlogical instead?
If what you want is a faster multiplexer with native apps, watch their beta. If what you want is to run and supervise a fleet of AI coding agents today, that's a different product — and by their own description, not the one they're building.
I already use herdr or cmux — does dev-mux replace them?
No. They're excellent box-level agent workspaces; dev-mux is the fleet layer above the box. Today the spoke floor is tmux; making the hub aware of other box-level multiplexers is on our roadmap.
Can I use Moshi (or any mobile terminal) with dev-mux?
Yes. Any SSH client can reach your hub and attach to your sessions. dev-mux also ships its own iOS app with the fleet cockpit, agent cards, and push notifications.
What does dev-mux cost?
Solo is $25/mo (dedicated hub, unlimited spokes, all surfaces). Team is $100/mo (5 seats, shared fleet). Custom hosting is available for teams with their own security boundaries. See pricing.
Run a fleet, not a wall of tabs.
Get early accessComparisons written 2026-07-31 against each product's public materials. Trademarks belong to their owners; no affiliation or endorsement implied.