The best terminal for AI coding agents on a Mac
Short answer. To run several command-line agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and others) side by side on a Mac and see at a glance which one needs you, use a terminal built for agents: Next Term if you want a native, free, MIT-licensed app with an editor and diffs next to the agents, and a local MCP server so you can ask your AI to control it; cmux if you want a Ghostty-based agent terminal with a browser pane. If you would rather have each task isolated in its own git worktree and carried to a pull request, use Conductor or Superset. If you want your agents beside your running dev stack, with shared todos and scratchpads for coordinating them, or need Windows too, use Solo. If you only use Claude and prefer a graphical app with cloud sessions, use Claude Code Desktop. For a general-purpose terminal, iTerm2 and Ghostty remain excellent, and work well next to any of these.
This page is written by the Next Term project, so read it with that in mind: every comparison below links to a full page that says plainly what the other tool does better, and lists the official sources it was checked against.
What matters when you run several agents
Section titled “What matters when you run several agents”- Status you can see without looking. Which agent is working, which is done, which waits on a permission prompt. The question is how the app knows: some read the agent’s screen, some need hooks or escape sequences installed into each agent.
- Notifications that say what is wanted, and take you to the right agent.
- Orchestration. Whether one agent can start, prompt, wait for and read the others, and whether that needs an account or a cloud service.
- Reviewing the work. Diffs, staging and history in the same window, or a trip to another app.
- Isolation. Whether each task gets its own git worktree, made for you.
- Where agents run. Your Mac, your own servers over ssh, or a vendor’s cloud.
- Cost and lock-in. The price, the licence, and whether you need an account.
At a glance
Section titled “At a glance”| Next Term | cmux | Conductor | Superset | Solo | Claude Code Desktop | iTerm2 | Ghostty | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Native terminal and editor for agents | Native terminal for agents | Mac app, a worktree per task | Desktop app, a worktree per task | Agent workspace beside your dev stack | Anthropic’s app for Claude Code | General terminal | General terminal |
| Agents | Any CLI agent; 21 recognised | Any CLI agent | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode | Any CLI agent | Any CLI agent; 8 built in | Claude only | Any | Any |
| Agent status | ✓ Read from the screen or output, no setup | ✓ From notifications and hooks | ✓ Per workspace | ✓ From hooks it installs | ✓ From output and titles (a heuristic); optional summaries | ✓ Per session | Partly: Claude Code through hooks; triggers and escape sequences | Partly: progress bar, bell |
| One agent runs the others | ✓ Local MCP server, no account; changes approved on your Mac | Partly: CLI and socket | Partly: hosted MCP, cloud workspaces | ✓ Hosted MCP, signed in | ✓ Local MCP, HTTP API and CLI; no account on Free | Partly: Claude sessions only | Partly: iTerm2’s own AI chat | Partly: AppleScript |
| Editor and diffs | ✓ Git Diff of a whole branch, per-hunk staging, Git Log, blame | — | ✓ Diffs, pull requests | ✓ Diffs, pull requests | — | ✓ Diffs, file pane | — | — |
| Worktree per task, made for you | — | — | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ Optional | — | — |
| Your own servers | ✓ ssh, kept in tmux or herdr | ✓ ssh, remote tmux | — | ✓ Through its relay (Pro) | — | ✓ ssh | ✓ tmux integration | ssh as usual |
| Cloud agents | — | ✓ Paid | ✓ Paid | — | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Price and licence | Free, MIT | Free app, GPL-3.0 | Free locally; paid plans | Free for one user; source-available | Free for 4 projects, then $99 a year; closed source | Paid Claude plan | Free, GPL v2 | Free, MIT |
| Platforms | macOS | macOS | macOS | macOS; Linux experimental | macOS, Windows | macOS, Windows, Linux | macOS | macOS, Linux |
Choose Next Term if…
Section titled “Choose Next Term if…”- You want to ask your AI to control your terminal. Next Term is an MCP server on your Mac, with no account and no network port. It registers itself in Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, seven more agents and the Claude desktop app, so one agent can list every tab with its agent’s state, open projects, start agents in new tabs or split panes, send prompts, wait until they stop, read their screens and answer their questions, across projects and on your servers. It can also edit files, commit and arrange panes, with each change approved on your Mac.
- You want status with nothing to install. It reads Claude Code, Codex, Command Code, Gemini CLI and OpenCode’s state from their own screens, and from output timing for 16 more agents. When Claude Code, Codex, Command Code or OpenCode waits on you, the notification quotes its question.
- You want to review agents’ work where they run: an editor with 112 grammars; Git Diff (⌃⌘G) for everything a branch changed, side by side or unified, with per-hunk stage, unstage and roll back of uncommitted changes; the Git Log and blame; and a project sidebar with git status. Five agents connect to it as their IDE and see your selection, and four of them (all but OpenCode) open their edits as diffs to accept or reject.
- You want a native app. Swift and AppKit, no Electron, about a 33 MB download; free and MIT-licensed, with no account.
It is not the right pick if you need Windows or Linux, cloud agents, a worktree made for every task, or your dev servers supervised; see below. Read more about Next Term.
Choose cmux if…
Section titled “Choose cmux if…”You want a native agent terminal drawn with Ghostty’s renderer, with a scriptable browser pane next to your agents, your layout restored after a restart, and paid cloud machines. Next Term vs cmux
Choose Conductor or Superset if…
Section titled “Choose Conductor or Superset if…”You want each task isolated in its own git worktree and carried through review to a pull request, with cloud workspaces, teams or a phone app on paid plans. Conductor centres on a chat with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or OpenCode; Superset runs any command-line agent and adds automations and a hosted MCP server. Next Term vs Conductor · Next Term vs Superset
Choose Solo if…
Section titled “Choose Solo if…”You want your agents next to your running dev stack: Solo starts and restarts the project’s dev servers and workers from a solo.yml your team shares, and gives agents shared scratchpads, todos, locks and timers through a local MCP server, an HTTP API and a command line. It runs on Windows too, leaves editing and diffs to your own editor, is closed source, and is free for four projects. Next Term vs Solo
Choose Claude Code Desktop if…
Section titled “Choose Claude Code Desktop if…”You use Claude only and want a graphical app: sessions in a sidebar, panes for diffs, files and a browser preview, cloud sessions that keep running when your Mac is off, and sessions started from your phone. Next Term vs Claude Code Desktop
Choose iTerm2 or Ghostty if…
Section titled “Choose iTerm2 or Ghostty if…”You want an all-round terminal first. iTerm2 shows Claude Code sessions’ status through hooks and has an AI chat that can watch your sessions; Ghostty is fast, GPU-rendered and themeable, and runs on Linux too. Both work next to Next Term, which imports their settings. Next Term vs iTerm2 · Next Term vs Ghostty
Questions
Section titled “Questions”Which terminal shows which Claude Code agent is waiting on me?
Section titled “Which terminal shows which Claude Code agent is waiting on me?”Next Term marks every tab with its agent’s state (working, done, waiting, failed) with no setup, and when Claude Code, Codex, Command Code or OpenCode waits on you, its notification quotes the question. cmux, Superset and iTerm2 show it too, once the agent sends notifications or their hooks are installed; Solo reads it from the agent’s output or terminal title, which it calls a heuristic, with an optional summariser; Conductor and Claude Code Desktop show it per workspace or session in their own apps.
Can one AI agent control other agents in my terminal?
Section titled “Can one AI agent control other agents in my terminal?”In Next Term, yes: its MCP server lets any agent that supports MCP (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor Agent and others) start, prompt, wait for and read other agents in Next Term tabs, locally. Solo’s local MCP server does similar work for the agents Solo runs, with shared todos, scratchpads and timers; Superset’s does it as a hosted service with a sign-in; cmux offers a CLI and socket an agent can call through its shell.
Do I need a worktree for every agent?
Section titled “Do I need a worktree for every agent?”Only if two agents would change the same files at once. Conductor, Superset and Claude Code Desktop can make one per task for you. Next Term shows a repository’s worktrees with the agents working in each, and marks a tab whose agent works in another worktree than its window shows. Agents that make their own worktrees, such as Claude Code, keep doing so.
Is there a free, open-source option?
Section titled “Is there a free, open-source option?”Yes. Next Term (MIT), cmux’s app (GPL-3.0), iTerm2 (GPL v2) and Ghostty (MIT) are free and open source. Conductor is free for local workspaces and Solo for four projects, but both are closed source, and Superset is source-available.
Read more
Section titled “Read more”- Next Term compared with every tool
- Agent status in every tab
- Orchestrate agents (MCP)
- Install and get started
Sources
Section titled “Sources”Updated 11 October 2026. Each tool’s facts come from its own site and documentation, listed on its comparison page. Products change quickly; if something here is out of date, please open an issue.