Claude Squad depends on tmux to manage parallel agent sessions. tmux is a Unix terminal multiplexer with no native Windows port — meaning Claude Squad does not run on Windows without first installing WSL. If you want the same parallel-agent workflow on Windows without Unix dependencies, Pane installs as a native Windows application and requires no tmux, no WSL, and no shell configuration.
By Parsa Khazaeepoul, co-founder of Pane. Tested every agent manager in this comparison set in production. .
the tmux problem on windows
Claude Squad is a Go binary that wraps tmux sessions. When you create a session in Claude Squad, it launches a tmux window, attaches your agent to it, and uses tmux's session management to keep multiple agents running in parallel. This architecture works elegantly on macOS and Linux where tmux is natively available.
On Windows, tmux does not exist as a native binary. There is no official Windows port from the tmux project and no widely used community build. The only practical way to run tmux on Windows is inside WSL — the Windows Subsystem for Linux — which means running a Linux kernel and environment inside Windows. Claude Squad can then run inside that WSL environment, but this creates real friction:
→ Setup overhead. Enabling WSL, choosing a distribution, installing tmux, installing your agent, and configuring PATH takes significant time before you can even open a first session.
→ Path translation issues. Repositories on your Windows filesystem (C:\Users\...) are accessed from WSL as /mnt/c/Users/.... Git operations across this boundary can behave unexpectedly.
→ I/O performance. Filesystem operations that cross the Windows/WSL boundary are slower than native. For agent workflows that read and write many files, this adds up.
→ It is not Windows. You are running Linux inside Windows. Windows-native tools, PATH variables, and environment configuration do not carry over automatically.
pane on windows: no tmux required
Pane
Claude Squad
native Windows support
yes
WSL only
requires tmux
no
yes
requires WSL
no (WSL optional)
yes, on Windows
Windows ARM64
yes
no
WSL-aware worktrees
yes (when using WSL)
depends on WSL setup
parallel agent sessions
yes
yes (via tmux)
desktop app vs TUI
desktop app
terminal TUI
open source
yes (AGPL-3.0)
yes (MIT)
pane and wsl: optional, not required
Unlike Claude Squad, Pane does not need WSL to run on Windows. But if you already use WSL for development, Pane is WSL-aware: you can run Pane as a native Windows application and point agent sessions at repositories inside your WSL filesystem. Pane handles the path resolution so worktree creation works correctly across the Windows/WSL boundary.
This means you get the best of both: Windows-native performance and installation, with full access to your existing WSL development environment if you use one.
Not natively. Claude Squad is a Go binary that wraps tmux sessions, and tmux has no native Windows port. You can run Claude Squad on Windows by installing WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and running everything inside that Linux environment, but that is not a native Windows experience — you are running a Unix subsystem inside Windows.
No. Pane manages terminal sessions internally as a native desktop application. There is no tmux dependency, no Unix multiplexer, and no shell configuration required. Install Pane, open a repository, and start sessions — that is the entire setup.
Yes, but with significant friction. You need to install WSL, install a Linux distribution, install tmux inside that distribution, install Claude Code or your agent inside WSL, and then run Claude Squad from the WSL shell. File access crosses the Windows/WSL boundary, which can cause path resolution issues and slower I/O. Pane runs natively on Windows without any of this setup.
Pane is the direct alternative for Windows developers. It provides the same parallel-agent, multi-session workflow as Claude Squad — running multiple coding agents in isolated git worktrees simultaneously — without requiring tmux, WSL, or any Unix dependencies. It installs as a native Windows application.
Pane uses git worktrees for per-agent isolation. Each session gets its own worktree — a separate working directory pointing to the same repository but checked out to its own branch. Agents write to their worktree independently, so there are no file conflicts between parallel sessions. This works natively on NTFS with no Unix tooling required.
Slower, in most agent workflows. Filesystem operations that cross the Windows/WSL boundary — reading source files, writing edits, running git — carry measurable overhead compared to native NTFS access. An agent session in Pane on native Windows reads and writes files at full disk speed. If your repository lives on the Windows filesystem, running agents through WSL adds latency on every file operation.
Yes. Pane is designed for exactly this use case. You open a repository, create multiple sessions, and each session runs its own Claude Code process in an isolated git worktree. All sessions run simultaneously — there is no limit enforced by Pane, only by your machine's memory and API rate limits.
Yes. Pane ships a native ARM64 Windows binary alongside the x64 build. Both are available through the standard installer at runpane.com. Claude Squad has no native Windows binary at all, so ARM64 Windows is not a supported target for Claude Squad without WSL.
Run this command in PowerShell: `irm https://runpane.com/install.ps1 | iex`. The script downloads the correct binary for your architecture (x64 or ARM64), places it in your PATH, and exits. No WSL, no package manager, and no additional dependencies are needed.
Yes. Pane has built-in session persistence. When you restart your machine and reopen Pane, your sessions and their associated worktrees are restored. Claude Squad does not persist sessions across restarts — tmux sessions are lost when the machine reboots or the WSL instance is shut down.
Yes. Pane is agent-agnostic and supports Claude Code, Codex, Aider, OpenCode, Goose, Letta Code, and Cline. Any coding agent that runs in a terminal is compatible. Claude Squad is also agent-agnostic in principle, but its tmux dependency means Windows users must go through WSL regardless of which agent they want to run.
Yes. Pane's built-in terminal emulator runs your system shell, which defaults to PowerShell on Windows. You can run PowerShell commands, npm scripts, and Windows-native tools directly inside a Pane session without switching environments.
Yes. Pane is licensed under AGPL-3.0. The full source is available on GitHub. There is no closed core, no proprietary feature tier, and no lock-in. Claude Squad is licensed under MIT, so both tools are open source — the difference is that Pane actually runs natively on Windows.
Windows SmartScreen warningDirect downloads can show a SmartScreen warning while Pane is unsigned. Pane is fully open source, so you can audit the code and build from source yourself.1. Click More info2. Click Run anyway3. Continue the installerThe PowerShell install downloads the official release directly and avoids most browser download friction.npm global install
