When comparing CLink 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 CLink is ranked 38th. 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 Transforms cmd.exe into something bearable
Cmd.exe is still irreplaceable for many tasks on Windows. This makes the experience less painful.
Pro Can easily search in history
The user can search in history by simply pressing Ctrl+R.
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 Supports cmd.exe not the successor platform
It's for cmd.exe which was abandoned by Microsoft in the favor of PowerShell. Using PowerShell is more effective than cmd.exe even with CLink, unfortunatelly.
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.