There are many alternatives to GNU Screen for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best Mac alternative is tmux, which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 10 alternatives to GNU Screen and six of them are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Mac alternatives to GNU Screen are byobu, Zellij, RMUX and abduco.
tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals (or windows), each running a separate program, to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen. tmux may be detached from a screen and continue running in the background, then later reattached.
Byobu is a GPLv3 open source text-based window manager and terminal multiplexer. It was originally designed to provide elegant enhancements to the otherwise functional, plain, practical GNU Screen , for the Ubuntu server distribution.
Zellij is a terminal workspace. It has the base functionality of a terminal multiplexer (similar to tmux or screen) but includes many built-in features that would allow users to extend it and create their own personalized environment.
Universal Rust multiplexer for the agentic era: detachable, scriptable, and inspectable, with a tmux-compatible CLI, daemon-backed SDK, and native Ratatui integration.
abduco provides session management i.e. it allows programs to be run independently from their controlling terminal. That is programs can be detached - run in the background - and then later reattached. Together with dvtm it provides a simpler and cleaner alternative to tmux or...
ZTerm is a terminal emulation program for the Macintosh. In its day, many people used it to connect to Bulletin Board Systems and download files. Now we have the internet. Its still a useful utility for those systems that only offer dialup connections and for connecting to...
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Tmux is the hot new kid on the terminal multiplexing block. Better readability in config and code, vertical split, and actual updates!