Amp vs Cmux (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?

Both are popular terminal coding agents. Here is how Amp and Cmux stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.

Amp

Frontier coding agent for the terminal and editor, from the makers of Sourcegraph

8.2 /10

Pricing: Free plan, paid from $20/mo

Pros

Strong results on hard, multi-step tasks
Shared threads for team review
Subagents and AGENTS.md built in

Cons

Usage-based costs add up on large tasks
Fewer configuration knobs by design

Visit Amp ↗

Cmux

Ghostty-based macOS terminal built for running many AI coding agents at once

7.0 /10

Pricing: Freemium

Pros

Purpose-built notification and status system (rings, tab highlights, a dedicated panel) so you can tell at a glance which of many agent panes needs attention
Sidebar surfaces git branch, PR status, working directory, and listening ports per pane; session layout, scrollback, and browser history survive a relaunch
Free and open source (GPL-3.0-or-later) with native resume integrations for a long list of CLI agents beyond Claude Code

Cons

macOS only, and still early with heavy churn (2k open issues, 1.7k open PRs) relative to its 27k stars
Founder's Edition (paid) gates the iOS app, cloud VMs and early AI features behind a tier with no public pricing listed

Visit Cmux ↗

Amp vs Cmux at a glance

	Amp	Cmux
Editor score	8.2 / 10	7.0 / 10
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starting price	$20/mo	Free
Reader upvotes	0	0
Best for	terminal, agent	terminal, claude-code, codex
Agent Skills support	Yes	No
Subagents support	Yes	No
MCP support	Yes	No
AGENTS.md support	Yes	No
Plugins support	Yes	No
Hooks support	No	No
Rules support	No	No
Agent skills in this directory	47	0
Subagents & agents in this directory	9	3
MCP servers in this directory	72	0

Our pick

Amp edges it with a score of 8.2 versus 7.0. Amp is the better fit if you value: strong results on hard, multi-step tasks, shared threads for team review. Choose Cmux instead if you need: purpose-built notification and status system (rings, tab highlights, a dedicated panel) so you can tell at a glance which of many agent panes needs attention, sidebar surfaces git branch, pr status, working directory, and listening ports per pane; session layout, scrollback, and browser history survive a relaunch.