Paneflow vs Ghostty
Paneflow organizes your coding agents, branches, and diffs in one workspace. Ghostty is a fast, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator with platform-native UI and sensible zero-config defaults. Choose Paneflow if your agents structure your work; choose Ghostty if you want the best minimal terminal for everything else.
Track multiple agents in one place
Paneflow launches up to 16 CLI agents in dedicated panes and shows which ones are working or waiting for your input. Ghostty runs them like any other process.
Give your agents the context of other panes
Paneflow's read-only MCP server (list_panes, read_pane, search_pane) lets an agent read logs or test output from another pane. Ghostty has no MCP server or agent integration.
Review your diffs without leaving the workspace
Paneflow shows git diffs in-app and can launch an agent review in a pane. Ghostty stays deliberately focused on being an excellent terminal emulator.
The important differences
Both are GPU-accelerated and free. Paneflow is a workspace built around coding agents; Ghostty is a general-purpose terminal emulator focused on speed, standards, and native UI.
| Paneflow | Ghostty | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Workspace for coding agents | General-purpose terminal emulator |
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later | MIT |
| Language / UI | Rust + GPUI | Zig + native UI (AppKit on macOS, GTK4 on Linux) |
| Rendering | GPU-native (Vulkan / Metal) | GPU-accelerated (Metal on macOS, OpenGL on Linux) |
| Platforms | Linux, macOS, Windows | Linux + macOS (no official Windows) |
| Coding agents | 16 CLI launchers + status tracking | Run as any process; no agent features |
| MCP server (agents read your panes) | Yes (read-only) | No |
| In-app diff + agent review | Yes | No |
| Session persistence | Restores panes, layouts, history | No session management (by design) |
| Inline images (Kitty graphics) | No | Yes |
| Embeddable core | No | Yes (libghostty: macOS, Linux, Windows, WASM) |
Versions: Paneflow v0.6.0 (June 2026). Ghostty 1.3.0 (March 2026), ~50,000 GitHub stars, created and maintained by Mitchell Hashimoto (HashiCorp co-founder) as an independent project. Both free: Paneflow GPL-3.0-or-later, Ghostty MIT.
Which tool should you use?
Choose based on what structures your work: your coding agents, or the terminal itself.
Choose Paneflow if
- -You run multiple coding agents and want to see who is working and who is waiting
- -You want your agents to read other panes over MCP and review diffs in the app
- -You want branches, dev servers, diffs, and sessions grouped per task
- -You want your workspace to restore panes, layouts, and history between sessions
Choose Ghostty if
- -You want the fastest, most polished general-purpose terminal with native UI
- -You rely on terminal standards like the Kitty graphics protocol and advanced VT features
- -You prefer minimal, zero-config tools and don't need agent tracking or MCP
- -You want the quick terminal, scrollback search, and rich clipboard of Ghostty 1.3
Frequently asked questions
Is Paneflow a fork of Ghostty?
No. Independent codebases: Ghostty is written in Zig with its own renderer and native UI layers; Paneflow is Rust on Zed's GPUI engine with upstream alacritty_terminal. Interestingly, cmux (the macOS tool that inspired Paneflow's design) embeds libghostty, but Paneflow itself shares no code with Ghostty.
Are Paneflow and Ghostty even in the same category?
They overlap less than the other comparisons here. Ghostty is a terminal emulator: it runs shells, fast and standards-compliant. Paneflow is an agent workspace: launchers, status tracking, MCP pane reading, diff review. Developers compare them anyway because both are GPU-accelerated and pitch a modern terminal experience; this page exists to make the difference explicit.
Does Ghostty have splits and session management?
Ghostty has native splits and tabs, but deliberately no tmux-style session management: no detach, no resurrection. Its maintainer recommends pairing it with a multiplexer when you need that. Paneflow restores panes, layouts, working directories, and history between launches, though it does not keep processes alive after closing.
Does Ghostty have AI or MCP integration?
No. Ghostty 1.3 focuses on terminal fundamentals: scrollback search, native scrollbars, command notifications, rich clipboard. It ships no agent launchers, no status tracking, and no MCP server. Paneflow ships all three out of the box.
What does Ghostty do better than Paneflow?
A lot, as a pure terminal. Ghostty is exceptionally fast, implements modern terminal protocols (Kitty graphics, OSC 133 semantic prompts), has platform-native UI on macOS and Linux, hundreds of themes, the quick terminal, and an embeddable core (libghostty). If you do not need agent orchestration, Ghostty is probably the better everyday terminal.
Try the tool that fits your day
Want a workspace that launches and tracks your coding agents? Download Paneflow or read the getting-started guide. Want a fast, minimal everyday terminal? Discover Ghostty.