Software Alternatives & Reviews

i3 VS tmux

Compare i3 VS tmux and see what are their differences

i3 logo i3

A dynamic tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii, and written in C.

tmux logo tmux

tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals (or windows), each running a...
  • i3 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-19
  • tmux Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-19

i3 videos

30k Miles with the BMW i3 - End of Lease Review

More videos:

  • Review - 2016 BMW i3 - Review and Road Test
  • Review - 2018 BMW i3s Range Extender (REx) Review - The Future Of Cars?
  • Demo - Gaming With Intel's Core i3 9100F - The First Turbo Boosted Desktop i3
  • Review - The best EV for the money? Used BMW i3 Review

tmux videos

How I Work: Tmux

More videos:

  • Tutorial - You need to know how to use TMUX
  • Review - Getting Started with tmux Part 1 - Overview and Features

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to i3 and tmux)
Window Manager
100 100%
0% 0
Terminal Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Linux
100 100%
0% 0
SSH
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare i3 and tmux

i3 Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022
Sway is a tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that dynamically arranges app windows to rationally maximise desktop space. It is free, open-source, and lightweight. By default, it arranges windows in a grid and supports practically all of the i3 commands.
Source: www.hubtech.org
Top 10 Best Desktop Environments in 2020
i3-wm is one of my most loved standalone window managers, qualifying it to easily fit under the desktop environment list! The configuration is just very easy, and you can change everything that you see on screen. This includes what information you see on the bottom panel, how windows behave, and keyboard shortcuts to move, align, and set up windows on the screen.
13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux
Sway is a free, open-source, and lightweight tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that automatically arranges app windows to logically maximize desktop space. It arranges windows into a grid by default and supports almost all the commands included in i3.
Source: www.tecmint.com
5 Great Tiling Window Managers for Linux
I begun testing i3 just this week. I was always fascinated by the Tiling WM’s as they seem really light on system resources and functional. To my surprise , although i3 is really easy to customize, and works really well (at least for my needs) , I found that it isn’t really that lightweight. I had Mate desktop environment use the same amount of RAM. Maybe I was mislead to...

tmux Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022
Tmux makes the most of the available space and is simple to use thanks to keybindings that may be used to divide windows and create extra panes. Individual shell instances can also be shared throughout various sessions and utilised for different purposes by different users.
Source: www.hubtech.org
13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux
tilix is a multiplexing terminal, not a tiling window manager. tmux is a terminal multiplexer, not a tiling window manager either. jwm is a lightweight STACKING window manager. I guess you could call tmux a tiling wm for a console only system (along with gnu screen and dvtm), but that’s really stretching your definition, and the other two certainly don’t qualify.
Source: www.tecmint.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, i3 should be more popular than tmux. It has been mentiond 89 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

i3 mentions (89)

  • "We understand" ;)
    This is partially why I use tools like i3 (/ sway). I like the tool; it works extremely well for me; the design has stayed the same for 20 years; there's no profit motive to come along and fuck everything up. It just works. It is boring in the best way possible. Source: 5 months ago
  • what machines have you used for development, and what do you prefer?
    I use MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid-2014) with Manjaro as OS using i3 as a window manager. It isn't perfect, but I'm thrilled with it. I have been a Mac OS user for the last 15 years and wouldn't change what I have now for a Mac OS because I don't need more than what I'm using for development. Source: 10 months ago
  • Machine for pentesting and general use?
    For daily usage I really like kubuntu with i3wm, but it takes some configuration and getting used to the shortcuts, but it's well worth it. Source: 11 months ago
  • What's the difference between Gnome and KDE? Do applications written for one work in the other?
    Some window managers are meant to be used as-is, and provide a minimalist yet functional environment that use very little resources or give power users an almost HUD-like interface. Examples of those window managers are OpenBox and i3wm for X, and Weston and Hyprland for Wayland. Source: 11 months ago
  • tiling window manager
    I did use i3 exclusively for a few years. The reasons I chose it were. Source: 12 months ago
View more

tmux mentions (26)

  • Easy Access to Terminal Commands in Neovim using FTerm
    Having a common set of tools already set up in different windows or sessions in Tmux or Zellij is obviously an option, but there is a subset of us ( 👋 ) that would rather just have fingertip access to our common tools inside of our editor. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Automating the startup of a dev workflow
    Well, I now use tmux and tmuxinator. I have had many failed tmux attempts over the years, but I'm firmly bedded in now. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Connecting Debugger to Rails Applications
    The downside of overmind is that it requires tmux, which is a terminal multiplexer tool. If you don't already use tmux, I'd say it's probably not worth learning it just for the purposes of using overmind. But if you're like me and already know/use tmux, this can be a great solution to pursue. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • NeoVim Capability Functions
    For splitting the terminal you could try either toggleterm or tmux. If you want to send things from one tmux pane to another, then you can use slime. For a toggle-able filetree, you can use nvim tree. Source: 6 months ago
  • New User
    Another reason the above setup is helpful is that I use terminal vim in conjunction with Tmux. I always configure my IDE where vim is about 75% of my terminal window, on the left. The other 25% is a command line. In tmux, you can "zoom in" to a tmux pane by using Leader+z (for default tmux, this is "Ctrl+b z"). This effectively allows me to focus on vim but pop out a command line when I need it. Having the three... Source: about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing i3 and tmux, you can also consider the following products

dwm - dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts. All of the layouts can be applied dynamically, optimising the environment for the application in use and the task performed.

Alacritty - Alacritty is a blazing fast, GPU accelerated terminal emulator.

awesome - A dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed in the C and Lua programming languages.

wezterm - GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer made with Rust.

bspwm - A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

iTerm2 - A terminal emulator for macOS that does amazing things.