cmux is Manaflow’s open-source macOS terminal built on libghostty for running many coding agents in parallel, with vertical tabs, workspaces, notification rings, and an open-core cloud tier.
cmux’s real product is attention routing, not multiplexing, and its real business is cloud execution: the terminal is the free, GPL-3.0 funnel, and the subscription is where the company actually lives.
What it is #
A native macOS terminal (built on libghostty, not an Electron app and not a Ghostty fork) whose features target the many-agents-at-once workflow: vertical and horizontal tabs, workspaces, split panes, notification rings around panes that need you, a notification panel that jumps to the most recent unread agent, and an in-app browser with a scriptable API ported from agent-browser.
It is programmable through a socket API and a cmux notify CLI, ships local session history, and runs Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, and any CLI agent on your own keys.
A paid subscription (Pro or Max) adds Cloud VM agents and the iOS app; the CodeRouter pitch that was on the pricing page in August has since disappeared from it.
Status #
Active and remarkably fast. About 27.6k stars and 2.4k forks as of 2026-10-04, created January 28, 2026, with commits landing the day of verification. The launch thread counted 18 releases in two days; the public changelog still tops out at v0.64.25 (2026-09-17) as of 2026-10-04, with a nightly channel alongside the release line. Three contributors dominate the history (about 5.2k, 3.8k, and 1.2k contributions), so this is a small funded team (Manaflow, Inc.) moving very quickly, not a broad community.
Strengths #
- Notification rings and the unread panel solve the actual pain of parallel agents, knowing which terminal is waiting for you, better than any tmux setup.
- libghostty makes it a real native terminal with real performance, and the maintainer is responsive (launch-thread bugs fixed within releases).
- The scriptable socket API and notify CLI mean agents themselves can drive it, and third parties already teach Claude Code to do exactly that.
- The free tier is the full terminal: every CLI agent, BYOK, notifications, browser panels, no metering.
Cautions #
- macOS only, and the client is GPL-3.0-or-later (which GitHub labels “Other”), so copyleft-policy teams should check before adoption.
- Open-core: cloud execution sits behind Pro at $50/month (with a $200/month Max tier for bigger VMs), so the roadmap’s center of gravity is the subscription, not the terminal.
- The pace is a risk profile: 0.x versions, a nightly channel, and a launch-era bug list mean churn.
- An August 2026 thread reports whole-app freezes of 2-10 seconds with SSH sessions open, so remote-heavy workflows should test first.
- Name collisions are everywhere: craigsc/cmux (“tmux for Claude Code”, MIT, about 604 stars), a separate October 2025 Show HN “Cmux, Coding Agent Multiplexer” GUI, and an unrelated Go connection multiplexer; search carefully before citing.
Pricing #
Free $0: the full terminal, any CLI agent BYOK, notifications, browser panels, socket API, local history. Pro $50/month: cloud agents on isolated VMs, up to 5 Cloud VMs per user with up to 4 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM per VM, plus unlimited workspaces, the iOS app, and email support, as of 2026-10-04. Max $200/month raises the per-VM ceiling to 16 vCPUs and 32 GB RAM, still up to 5 Cloud VMs per user, as of 2026-10-04. Team $60/user/month gives each user the Pro allowance (5 VMs, 4 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM per VM) plus centralized billing and priority support; Enterprise adds self-hosted, even air-gapped, cloud execution, SSO/SAML, audit logs, custom VM limits, and SOC 2 with an SLA, as of 2026-10-04. The dollar tiers are unchanged since 2026-09-18, but the packaging moved again on 2026-10-04: the shared pools (up to 50 VMs sharing 24 GB RAM and 6 vCPUs on Pro, 64 GB RAM and 16 vCPUs on Max) are gone, replaced by a per-user count of 5 VMs with per-VM resource caps, and the page now describes Cloud VMs as persistent pets rather than cattle.
Price history #
| Date | Plan | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-05 | Pro | Shared-pool cloud VM resources, with totals differing from later descriptions. | |
| 2026-09-09 | Pro | Listed per-VM resources with a 256 GB disk ceiling. | |
| 2026-09-10 | Pro | Returned to shared-pool phrasing (up to 50 VMs sharing 24 GB RAM and 6 vCPUs). | |
| 2026-09-16 | Pro | Priced $50/mo, or $40 billed yearly. | |
| 2026-09-18 | All tiers | Yearly rate removed: Pro $50/mo monthly only; Max $200/mo adds 32 or 64 GB machines on 16 vCPUs; Team $60/user/mo; Free $0. | |
| 2026-09-27 | Max | At $200/mo unchanged, the per-machine resources (32 or 64 GB VMs) were replaced by a shared pool of 64 GB RAM and 16 vCPUs across up to 50 Cloud VMs. | |
| 2026-10-04 | Pro, Max, Team | Cloud packaging restructured at unchanged dollar tiers: up to 5 Cloud VMs per user with per-VM caps (Pro 4 vCPUs/8 GB, Max 16 vCPUs/32 GB, Team same as Pro) replaced the shared pools of up to 50 VMs (Pro 24 GB RAM/6 vCPUs, Max 64 GB/16 vCPUs). |
Compared to #
- dmux: tmux-based and cross-platform; pick dmux off macOS, cmux for notifications.
- Claude Squad: free AGPL tmux manager; lighter, rougher, no cloud ambitions.
- Vibe Kanban: kanban abstraction over agents versus staying in the terminal metaphor.
Bottom line #
Recommended for macOS engineers whose bottleneck is attention across many CLI agent sessions and who want that solved in a real terminal. Not for Linux or Windows users, copyleft-restricted shops, or anyone who needs a stable 1.0 interface.
Changes #
- 2026-08-24 - Created in the Orchestration category after an owner request, covering manaflow-ai/cmux and disambiguating two same-named products.
- 2026-09-02 - Pricing packaging changed, CodeRouter removed and unlimited active cloud VMs added.
- 2026-09-04 - Cloud VM disk cap cut from 200GB to 32GB.
- 2026-09-05 - Pricing restructured again to a shared pool (5 vCPU, 20 GB, 200 GB) with VMs starting at 8 GB/32 GB.
- 2026-09-06 - Pricing page dropped the shared-pool cloud spec for per-VM resources with a 256 GB disk ceiling.
- 2026-09-10 - Pricing page reverted to shared-pool phrasing (24 GB RAM, 6 vCPU shared).
- 2026-09-18 - Pricing page moved to monthly-only billing and added a $200/month Max tier with up to 64 GB RAM per Cloud VM.
- 2026-09-20 - Added the Price history section tracking price changes in a table, per the new owner rule.
- 2026-09-27 - Max tier packaging moved from per-machine resources to a shared 64 GB RAM and 16 vCPU pool across up to 50 Cloud VMs at the same $200/mo.
- 2026-10-04 - Cloud packaging moved again: 5 Cloud VMs per user with per-VM resource caps (Pro 4 vCPUs/8 GB, Max 16 vCPUs/32 GB, Team same as Pro) replaced the shared 50-VM pools at unchanged dollar tiers, and I corrected the front matter date, which a prior run had left at 2026-09-27 after refreshing numbers.
See also #
- Agentic Coding Tools Landscape - the orchestration layer this note belongs to
- Managing Many Concurrent LLM Agent Sessions - the supervision problem the notification panel exists for
- dmux - the terminal-native cross-platform alternative
- Claude Squad - the free minimal neighbor
References #
https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux - source, license statement, repository scale, as of 2026-10-04
https://cmux.com/pricing - tiers, the Max tier, shared-pool cloud VM specs and their churn, the 2026-10-04 move to 5 VMs per user, CodeRouter removal, re-verified 2026-10-04
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47079718 - the February 2026 launch thread with author Q&A
https://www.bounds.dev/posts/teaching-claude-code-to-drive-cmux/ - third-party account of agents driving cmux programmatically