PR Marmotgh-dash
gh-dash is the most popular dashboard in this category and, for anyone who lives in a terminal, the right answer. Here is where it wins, and where a native window helps instead.
The short answer
If you already live in a terminal, use gh-dash. It is free, MIT-licensed, actively developed, and at 12,519 stars (measured 2026-09-16 on its repository) it is by a wide margin the most used dashboard in this category. PR Marmot is newer and smaller — 0 stars on the same day, which is the honest number.
The real question is not which is better. It is whether you want a pull request dashboard inside your terminal or beside it. gh-dash is the first; PR Marmot is the second.
What gh-dash is
gh-dash calls itself “a rich terminal UI for GitHub that doesn't break your flow.” It is a GitHub CLI extension written in Go, MIT-licensed, and configured in YAML. Described from gh-dash.dev and its repository, read 2026-09-16.
- Your own sections.
prSectionsandissuesSectionstake GitHub search filters, so the dashboard's layout is whatever set of queries you decide matters. - Your own commands. Custom commands can be bound to keys and run against the selected row, which makes it a launcher as well as a view.
- Terminal navigation. h/j/k/l to move between rows and sections, o to open in a browser, y/Y to copy a pull request number or URL.
- Themes. Colours and display options are configurable.
- It runs where your terminal runs, which includes over SSH, on a build box, or inside a container with no desktop at all.
Where gh-dash wins
This is the section that matters, because anyone reading this page probably already knows gh-dash is good.
- It is far more established. 12,519 stars against 0 means years of issues, answers, dotfiles and blog posts that PR Marmot simply does not have yet.
- It is already open. No extra window to manage, no app to switch to — it is a command in the terminal you were using anyway.
- It is configurable in ways PR Marmot is not. If you want a section for “PRs touching the payments directory, older than a week, not mine”, gh-dash will give you exactly that. PR Marmot's sections are built in.
- It works on Linux and Windows today, with no build step. PR Marmot ships a signed binary for Apple-silicon Macs only; everywhere else means building from source.
- It can do things. Custom commands let you check out a branch or run your own script against the selected pull request. PR Marmot is read-only toward GitHub by design and always will be.
- It is free and MIT, exactly like PR Marmot. Neither of us is the paid option here.
What PR Marmot adds
Everything below is a trade against the list above, not a refutation of it.
- A GUI, for people who do not want a TUI. A resizable native window with a table you can leave on a second screen, rather than a pane competing with your shell.
- No configuration file. The sections — work involving you, your own pull requests, reviews requested from you, work available to review — are built in. There is no YAML to write before it is useful, and no YAML to maintain when GitHub's search syntax moves.
- A computed Note per pull request. Instead of showing you CI, reviews, threads and conflicts as separate columns to interpret, PR Marmot reads them together and writes a sentence about what the row needs next.
- Watch, snooze, and Changed. Watch a pull request with w, snooze one with s until a condition you choose, and see Changed markers for what moved since the app last looked.
- Stack grouping from GitHub's native stack metadata, ordered base first, with partial stacks marked as partial.
- Desktop notifications for watched pull requests while the app is running.
Both tools authenticate the same way: through the gh CLI login you already have. Neither asks your organization to approve a new app.
Side by side
| gh-dash | PR Marmot | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | Terminal UI, a gh extension | Native desktop window (Rust + GPUI) |
| Licence | MIT, open source | MIT, open source |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Stars, 2026-09-16 | 12,519 | 0 |
| Platforms | Wherever the terminal runs, incl. SSH | Apple-silicon Mac binary; source elsewhere |
| Configuration | YAML: sections, filters, keys, themes | Built-in sections, no config needed |
| Acts on pull requests | Yes, via custom commands | No, read-only by design |
| Plain-language Note | No | Yes |
| Watch / snooze / Changed | No | Yes |
| Auth | gh login | gh login |
No memory, CPU or startup-time row appears here on purpose. PR Marmot has not published a benchmark, and a claim without one is marketing.
Which one to use
Choose gh-dash if your editor is in a terminal, you enjoy configuring tools, you work over SSH, you are on Linux or Windows, or you want to trigger actions from the dashboard.
Try PR Marmot if you use a graphical editor, you want a window you can glance at without changing context, you would rather not write YAML, or you want the Note and the watch/snooze workflow.
They coexist fine. Both are free and MIT, so the only cost of trying the other one is a few minutes. Install PR Marmot or read the wider roundup of Mac options.
Sources
- gh-dash.dev — the project's own documentation. Read 2026-09-16.
- dlvhdr/gh-dash — repository, licence and star count. Measured 2026-09-16: 12,519 stars, MIT.
- “Gh-dash: A beautiful CLI dashboard for GitHub” — Hacker News discussion.
- oliver-kriska/prmarmot — PR Marmot's own repository. Measured 2026-09-16: 0 stars, MIT.