WinSSHTerm vs tmux
When comparing WinSSHTerm vs tmux, the Slant community recommends tmux for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for Windows?” tmux is ranked 15th while WinSSHTerm is ranked 26th. The most important reason people chose tmux is:
There is a keyboard shortcut that makes it easy to split a window and create more panes.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Freeware
WinSSHTerm is free for anyone to use.
Pro Keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are especially valuable for professionals.
Pro Supports X Server
There is easy, automatic integration with X Server and starts/stops can take place with the launch/exit of WinSSHTerm.
Pro Supports file transfer
The user can start a WinSCP session inside WinSSHTerm, without the need to duplicate the session in WinSCP.
Pro Highly portable
The user can run WinSSHTerm from a USB drive on different computers.
Pro Ready for production use
There are no annoying bugs in WinSSHTerm. Navigation tools and keyboard shortcuts are a great time saver, especially if you have to manage multiple connections.
Pro Easily split panes
There is a keyboard shortcut that makes it easy to split a window and create more panes.
Pro Windows linked to sessions
tmux calls the individual shell instances windows. They are displayed like tabs in the status line. These windows can be shared between different sessions, so that any given shell instance can be in any number of tmux sessions used for different purposes or by different users. This allows configurations like the following example: User A: wAB, wA1, wA2; User B: wB1, wAB, wB2
Pro Preserve the state
As long as you don't close your session, you may even lose your SSH connection, it'll keep your state just as it was. So you can resume where you left off (via tmux attach
).
Pro Maximize screen space
As a tiling window manager, it'll make use of all the space. As you have multiple workspaces and you can resize, etc. you can adjust to see what matters most.
Pro Frequently updated
Tmux is in a state of constant development. Updates are frequent and bug reports usually get an answer within days.
Pro Customizable
Open ~/.tmux.conf to get started. You can customize keybindings, the bottom status bar, color schemes, the clock screen, your time zone, and more.
Pro Mouse support
Mouse support can optionally be enabled, allowing e.g. scrolling with the mouse wheel, or switching panes with mouse clicks.
Pro Only need to learn a few keyboard shortcuts and commands to make much headway
Cons
Con Not a true terminal emulator
It's a PuTTY interface and it's mostly used to access remote machines through ssh, so it may not be very suitable for working on a local machine.
Con Poorly designed key binding
Counter-intuitive keyboard shortcuts make tmux very hard to use and learn.
Con Bad scrolling support
Con No builtin telnet or serial support
It's considered bloat by the maintainers and for this reason there's no builtin support for them.