Zellij

Raised as a usability problem by 14 people on Hacker News over 6 years (2021–2026), in 10 threads.

People raised many different problems with Zellij, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 14 complaints

Can't easily scroll back and copy text without the mouse, unlike tmux2026-10-30
Default UI has so much chrome it takes up screen space2026-08-20
Keyboard-only selecting and copying from scrollback isn't supported, so users must use a mouse or pipe output to an editor2026-06-17
Clickable-looking link does not work as users expect, so the page seems broken2026-04-14
Docs leave user unable to tell when plugins download or how runtime works2025-12-06
Zellij's modal keybindings feel frustrating, like constantly being in Normal mode2025-08-01
Alt key doesn't work on mac, and icons don't show over ssh without a patched font2024-06-13
Every action requires entering a mode, and too many elements clutter the screen2024-02-05
Commands are hard to discover without learning shortcuts or reading the manual2022-08-13
Key bindings are clunky and slow to use2022-08-13
Input lags so much that typed keys get ahead of the display buffer2021-04-23
Default Ctrl-r shortcut clashes with bash history recall, breaking an everyday habit2021-04-22
Ctrl-r shortcut conflicts with bash history recall, making the tool seem unusable2021-04-22
Can't find how to detach in the menu; interface feels laggy over remote connections2021-04-22