When comparing Console2 vs tmux, the Slant community recommends Console2 for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for Windows?” Console2 is ranked 13th while tmux is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose Console2 is:
Console2 comes with multiple window styles out of the box and allows the user to configure fonts, colors, and transparency to their liking.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Customizable aesthetics
Console2 comes with multiple window styles out of the box and allows the user to configure fonts, colors, and transparency to their liking.
Pro Easy-to-use text selection
Console2's text selection is intuitive and easy to use.
Pro Highly configurable hotkeys
Hotkeys allow the user to easily trigger an action and can be configured to their liking.
Pro Borderless mode minimizes crashes
Borderless windowed mode is basically a fullscreen mode but with a super fast alt tab option and seamless task switching without the risk of crashes or freezes.
Pro Transparency support
Console2 supports transparency. You can adjust how transparent the background should be.
Pro Dynamically resize window
You can change the width and height of the console window without having to reset your session.
Pro Supports fullscreen mode
Console2 supports fullscreen mode, making for greater visibility.
Pro Can run any existing shell
Console2 facilitates the running of CMD, PowerShell, Cygwin, PuTTY, etc.
Pro Free and open source
Console2 is licensed under MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0/LGPL 2.1, making it free and open source.
Pro Tabbed
Console2 allows the user to create tabs for separate instances of the terminal, allowing them to have both multiple shells and multiple instances of the same shell open.
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 maintained
The development of Console2 has been abandoned. The latest change was made in 2013.
Con Stopping a script closes the tab
Usually when a script is running and you try to stop it with Ctrl-c, it stops and shows the empty command prompt waiting to get a new command. In Console2 this does not happen: instead the whole tab where the script is running is closed.
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.