Saggar vs cmux
The closest comparison on this site, and the hardest one to win.
cmux and Saggar answer the same question and answer it in the same language. Both are native Mac apps written in Swift rather than wrapped web apps. Both put agent sessions in a sidebar, both notice when an agent wants something, and both restore your layout when you reopen them.
cmux is free, it is GPL-3, and it has a large and enthusiastic following. If you want a terminal built for agents and you want to read its source, the comparison is short: use cmux.
Saggar is closed source and Mac-only, and it goes further in one direction — treating your attention as the thing to schedule, and following it off the Mac onto your phone.
What cmux does well
- Rendering through libghostty, so it is GPU-accelerated and reads your existing Ghostty configuration.
- Notification rings on panes and tabs, with a panel that collects unread notifications and jumps to them.
- A vertical sidebar carrying branch, linked PR status, working directory, and listening ports.
- A built-in browser with a scriptable API, so an agent can snapshot the accessibility tree, click, and fill forms.
- A CLI and socket API for automating workspaces, and per-project actions from cmux.json.
- Free, open source under GPL-3.0-or-later, and a genuinely large community.
Where Saggar takes a different line
- Attention is one queue, not a set of indicators. Prompts, failures, and finished sessions are ordered by priority and ⌘J walks them, so triage is a keystroke rather than a scan.
- Sessions carry five statuses — needs you, working, idle, finished, failed — rather than a notified or not-notified state.
- Remote access is a first-party web client on any browser, included, with pairing gated on your account and an explicit approval at the Mac. cmux's iOS app is in TestFlight beta and offered with the paid Founder's Edition.
- Project state is written to .saggar/ beside the code — scratchpad, commands, layouts, and scheduled jobs — so the agents working in that repo can read it too.
Side by side
YesPartlyNo
| Saggar | cmux | |
|---|---|---|
| Native Mac appA real Mac window with menus, keyboard shortcuts, split panes, and themes — not a text UI or a web view. | Yes. Swift and SwiftUI, built against macOS 26.Swift and SwiftUI, built against macOS 26. | Yes. Swift and AppKit, rendering through libghostty.Swift and AppKit, rendering through libghostty. |
| Status without lookingEach session says what it is doing, so you don't read five transcripts to find the one that stopped. | Yes. Needs you, working, idle, finished, or failed, re-read every two seconds.Needs you, working, idle, finished, or failed, re-read every two seconds. | Yes. Panes ring and tabs light up when an agent needs attention.Panes ring and tabs light up when an agent needs attention. |
| One ordered attention queueEverything waiting on a decision, collected in priority order and walkable from the keyboard. | Yes. Prompts, failures, and finished work form one queue. ⌘J walks it.Prompts, failures, and finished work form one queue. ⌘J walks it. | Partly. A notification panel collects unread items and jumps to them.A notification panel collects unread items and jumps to them. |
| Answer from your phoneRead a terminal and reply to its prompt while you are away from the Mac. | Yes. The Companion runs in any browser. Pair once by scanning a QR code.The Companion runs in any browser. Pair once by scanning a QR code. | Partly. An iOS app in TestFlight beta, offered with the paid Founder's Edition.An iOS app in TestFlight beta, offered with the paid Founder's Edition. |
| Work survives a disconnectAgents keep running when the network drops, the lid closes, or the machine restarts. | Partly. Sessions and scrollback are restored, and idle sleep is held off while work needs you. A closed lid still stops it.Sessions and scrollback are restored, and idle sleep is held off while work needs you. A closed lid still stops it. | Partly. Layout, directories, scrollback, and agent sessions are restored. SSH workspaces are supported.Layout, directories, scrollback, and agent sessions are restored. SSH workspaces are supported. |
| Project workspaceBranch, worktree, dirty files, listening ports, notes, and startup commands, kept per codebase. | Yes. Tracked live, and stored in .saggar/ beside the code where agents can read it.Tracked live, and stored in .saggar/ beside the code where agents can read it. | Yes. Branch, PR status, directory, and ports in the sidebar; per-project actions from cmux.json.Branch, PR status, directory, and ports in the sidebar; per-project actions from cmux.json. |
| Works without an accountInstall it and use it without signing in to anything. | Yes. The Mac app needs no account. Sign in only when you want your phone to reach it.The Mac app needs no account. Sign in only when you want your phone to reach it. | Yes. No account needed.No account needed. |
| Open sourceYou can read the code, fork it, and keep it if the company stops. | No. Closed source.Closed source. | Yes. GPL-3.0-or-later, with commercial licensing on request.GPL-3.0-or-later, with commercial licensing on request. |
| Runs beyond macOSLinux and Windows, for people who don't work on a Mac. | No. macOS 26 Tahoe or later, on Apple silicon.macOS 26 Tahoe or later, on Apple silicon. | No. macOS only.macOS only. |
Claims about cmux come from its own documentation and were last checked in August 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
Which one
Pick cmux
Choose cmux if open source matters to you, if you already live in Ghostty and want your config to carry over, or if you want an in-app browser your agents can drive. It is a good app and it costs nothing.
Pick Saggar
Choose Saggar if the thing that actually hurts is deciding which of six sessions to look at next, and if you want to answer a permission prompt from your phone without paying for a beta.
Other comparisons
Saggar vs herdr
Different layers of the same problem. You can run both.
Saggar vs Warp
Warp rebuilds the terminal. Saggar organises what you run in it.
Saggar vs tmux
tmux is not wrong. It was built before anything in a pane could ask you a question.
Saggar vs an IDE terminal
The panel is fine for one agent. It was never a supervision surface.
Saggar vs Claude Code
Not a competitor. Saggar's whole job is running this well.