When comparing Tilix 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 Tilix is ranked 22nd. 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 Multiple sessions inside a single window
In addition to tiling, Tilix supports placing separate sessions in tabs or switching from one to another through a sidebar.
Pro Tiling makes for ease of use
The user can split terminals horizontally or vertically, according to their needs or preferences.
Pro Integrates nicely into GNOME 3
Tilix follows the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines and uses the UI patterns of this desktop environment.
Pro Good alternative to Terminator
Tiling and ability to type into multiple terminals simultaneously is Terminator's 2 most significant features. Tilix has them as well.
Pro Configurable shortcuts
Many actions in Tilix can be triggered with configurable shortcuts.
Pro GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
Tilix follows GNOME HIG whereas gnome-terminal doesn't. GNOME should use Tilix as their default terminal.
Pro Transparent background
Unlike the standard GNOME Terminal, Tilix supports configurable background transparency.
Pro Fancy looks
Tilix has that new GNOME look, with a HeaderBar. It can also be disabled.
Pro Able to write into multiple terminals simultaneously
Inside a session, you can select multiple terminals, which will receive the same input simultaneously.
Pro Can be used as a drop-down terminal
The new 1.30 version of Tilix supports a quake mode enabling it to work as a drop-down terminal.
Pro Extremely fast
As fast as gnome-terminal, if not faster.
Pro Copy on select
Pro Faster than Gnome Terminal
When running commands it feels snappier.
Pro Easy
Pro Copy as HTML
You can copy text from the terminal as HTML for embedding in web settings.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Solarized themes built-in
Great support for solarized color schemes, and no setup is involved.
Pro Terminus can notify you about finished tasks and perform actions based on terminal output
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 Unmaintained
Bugs and pull requests are not processed.
Con No font ligatures
Con Takes a bit more memory than Gnome terminal
Would've expected this to be more lightweight.
Con Heavyweight
Tilix has quite a lot of dependencies and takes ~100MB of RAM when running.
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.