Rex vs Herder: Which One Should You Actually Use?

Summary

The video is a 24-hour first-impressions comparison of Herder’s newly released GUI and Rex’s public beta, from the perspective of a developer who spends most of their time in the terminal. It is not a deep dive into either product.

Main Differences

• Herder focuses on managing AI agents. It groups agents and workspaces, supports multi-agent workflows, and lets agents interact with or manage other agents. Its GUI is highly customizable, and community mods are available.
• Rex is positioned more as a terminal and multiplexer for a broader range of work, with agent awareness built in. The presenter found its layout, navigation, and overall experience more polished and cohesive.

Usability and Customization

• The presenter found Herder’s navigation confusing after switching between hosts, workspaces, and tabs. Its agent inbox can become noisy, and agents reorder as their states change, making them harder to track.
• Herder’s standout UI advantage is its extensive customization: users can change interface elements and install community mods.
• Rex’s machine → session → tab hierarchy and pane layout felt easier for the presenter to understand and navigate.

Agents, Sessions, and Remote Machines

• Both products support persistent terminal sessions, remote machines, and agent-state tracking. Both can display state from agents that emit OSC 7501.
• Neither product’s sessions survive a machine reboot.
• Rex offers system-level notifications and Lua scripting for responding to events. The presenter also praised Rex’s MCP integration as a convenient way to work with agents.
• Herder provides an agent inbox and built-in agent-management features. Its CLI and agent setup were not examined in depth in this first look.
• Rex supports multiplayer, Tailscale integration, and connections to machines outside the user’s Tailscale account.
• Herder uses Herder Core, a server/local daemon, and supports remote access over SSH. The presenter also noted its network-listener and multi-user server options.

Platforms and Development Workflows

• At the time of the video, Herder had macOS, Linux, and Windows apps. Rex’s public beta was macOS-only, although the presenter said other platform clients were planned and some server support already existed.
• Herder has built-in Git worktree management. Rex did not have native worktree management at the time.
• The presenter briefly compared both tools with ZenTerm, their own terminal project. ZenTerm is not a multiplexer and lacks session persistence, but it supports remote-host workspaces and Git worktrees, including APFS clone copying and handling of ignored files.

Verdict

The presenter’s recommendation depends on the primary use case:

• Choose Herder if your central goal is multi-agent management and coordination.
• Choose Rex if you want a terminal replacement or multiplexer that also provides agent awareness and management.

The presenter considered Rex the more polished general-purpose terminal experience, while emphasizing that both products were early and evolving.

Review and Tutorial Information

• Review: A first-look comparison based on roughly 24 hours of use with each product.
• Tutorial: No step-by-step tutorial is provided. The video includes demonstrations of Herder’s navigation, UI customization, agent inbox, and worktree features.

Main Speaker and Source

• Drucial — the presenter, a terminal developer and creator of ZenTerm.