Quil vs herdr.
A Rust terminal multiplexer purpose-built for AI coding agents — 'the runtime your coding agents live on.' Single binary, its own PTY and VT engine, a socket API agents can drive, and a language-agnostic plugin system. Quil's closest philosophical twin.
Agent breadth and extensibility.
Agent breadth and extensibility. Detects 20+ agents with screen-content heuristics, installs native integrations with one command, exposes a full socket API + CLI that agents and scripts can drive, and runs language-agnostic plugins with actions, event hooks, and a marketplace.
Native Windows. MCP-native. Notes + memory built in.
Native Windows is still beta, there is no MCP server — herdr's own pitch is that agents talk to each other through it without one, so they drive it through a bespoke socket API and an installed skill instead of a protocol assistants already speak — and it has no pane-notes editor or per-pane memory reporting.
herdr and Quil made almost the same bet: build your own multiplexer, keep it a single lightweight binary, and make it agent-aware. herdr is further ahead on agent breadth (20+ agents detected, with native integrations for most of them) and on scriptable plugins; Quil is further ahead on native Windows and on speaking MCP, the protocol AI assistants already understand. The honest read: herdr is the stronger Unix-first agent fleet manager today, Quil is the stronger Windows-native, MCP-native one.
Feature by feature.
| capability | quil | herdr |
|---|---|---|
| Own multiplexer + PTY (not a tmux wrapper) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Survives a full host reboot | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI session auto-resume | ✓ | ✓ |
| └── herdr restores native sessions for most of the agents it integrates with; Quil for Claude Code, OpenCode and Codex. | ||
| Native Windows (no WSL) | ✓ | ~ |
| └── herdr's native Windows support is a ConPTY beta; Quil ships bundled ConPTY/OpenConsole and a Windows clipboard image-paste proxy. | ||
| MCP server for AI agents | ✓ | ✕ |
| └── herdr exposes a bespoke socket API + an installed agent skill instead of the MCP protocol. | ||
| Pane notes editor | ✓ | ✕ |
| Per-pane memory reporting | ✓ | ✕ |
| Screen-content agent detection (no hooks) | ~ | ✓ |
| └── Quil pattern-matches idle only; herdr ships updatable detection manifests for every agent it lists. | ||
| Breadth of agents detected | ~ | ✓ |
| └── Quil: 3 deep (Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex) + tools. herdr: 20+. | ||
| One-command agent integration installer | ✕ | ✓ |
| Git worktree-per-session | ✓ | ✓ |
| └── Quil opens a tab straight onto a new worktree — the pane is a placeholder with a spinner while git worktree add runs, so a slow monorepo checkout can never be mistaken for an agent started in the wrong tree — and closing that tab or pane offers to remove the worktree, naming what it holds and refusing to call a dirty one clean. | ||
| Executable plugins (actions / event hooks / link handlers) | ~ | ✓ |
| └── Quil plugins are declarative TOML pane types; herdr runs any-language plugins. | ||
| Plugin marketplace | ✕ | ✓ |
| General CLI to script the multiplexer | ✕ | ✓ |
| └── Quil scripts via MCP (for AI); herdr adds a shell CLI for humans. | ||
| Remote SSH thin-client attach | ✓ | ✓ |
| └── `quil --remote <host>` since v1.44; opens no port, reconnects on its own after a dropped link, and installs itself on a bare server. | ||
| Several hosts in one window at once | ✓ | ✕ |
| └── Since v1.47 a Quil client holds the local daemon and any number of remote ones together, each project tagged with the machine that owns it and each host with its own reconnect state. herdr's remote attach drives one server per client. | ||
| Named sessions / live server handoff | ✕ | ✓ |
| Sound + desktop notifications | ~ | ✓ |
| └── Quil raises real Windows toasts when an agent parks on a prompt or finishes a turn, and clicking one routes you to the pane that sent it. Still missing: sound, and macOS/Linux — herdr does all three, and can hand the notification to the outer terminal as well as the OS. | ||
| Themes with light/dark auto-switch | ~ | ✓ |
| └── Quil ships no theme presets — it asks the terminal for its real foreground and background (OSC 10/11) and renders against those, so it follows your terminal instead of theming itself. herdr carries named themes and switches between a light and a dark one when the terminal reports the change. | ||
Coming from herdr?
herdr uses a tmux-style prefix (Ctrl+B) where Quil uses direct Alt-based keys. Both keep agents alive on detach and restore AI sessions. If you're on Windows without WSL, Quil is the smoother path; if you drive many different agents from Unix and want to script the multiplexer from a shell, herdr is very strong.
▸ Is herdr basically Quil in Rust?
Architecturally they're remarkably close — both build their own multiplexer and PTY layer rather than wrapping tmux, both keep agents alive on detach, both restore AI sessions. The divergence is emphasis: herdr optimizes for agent breadth and shell scriptability on Unix; Quil optimizes for native Windows and for being an MCP server that AI assistants drive directly.
▸ Can herdr run on Windows without WSL?
It has an experimental native Windows (ConPTY) beta, but several features are unsupported there. Quil treats Windows as a first-class target with bundled ConPTY/OpenConsole and a clipboard image-paste proxy.
▸ How do agents control each tool?
herdr exposes a Unix-socket API plus a CLI, and ships an installable 'skill' so an agent learns to call it. Quil exposes 18 tools over the Model Context Protocol, which Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code speak natively with no glue.
Other comparisons.
Try them both. Pick a side.
Quil installs side-by-side with herdr. Nothing to uninstall first.