Hey there!
Managing servers, infrastructure, remote systems is vital yet incredibly challenging in today‘s always-on business environment. Thankfully, iOS offers some amazingly powerful tools to securely access command lines interfaces on the go.
Let me walk you through the top benefits of using a dedicated terminal or SSH client app on your iPhone or iPad:
Why Terminal Apps Offer Far More Convenience
Now I know what you might be thinking – can‘t we already manage servers on-the-go with Safari, secure shell built into iOS and tools like Screen sharing?
Fair point, but specialized terminal apps provide several pivotal advantages:
1. Avoid connectivity drops: Purpose-built apps use efficient protocols like Mosh to resume interrupted SSH and RDP sessions seamlessly.
2. Work offline: Queue commands execute automatically once back online.
3. Automate tedious tasks: Create shortcuts and scripts to execute routine jobs in one tap.
4. Unified interface: Connect to different servers; transfer files – all within a single app.
5. Analyze data usage: Apps provide dashboard showing frequently used commands, SSH connections etc. to help optimize workflows.
6. Tag favorite hosts: Bookmark commonly accessed servers across apps and devices.
7. Share sessions securely: Granularly control access with view-only or read-write privileges per user.
8. Customizable interface: Tailor font sizes, color schemes, touch gestures as per your preference.
9. Available 24/7: Quickly check server status or tweak config late night without having to wakeup your desktop!!
And most importantly, SSH apps utilize state-of-the-art encryption to provide unmatched security – whether you are working from your morning commute or your cousin‘s wedding!
Now that I have convinced you terminally apps unlock tremendous productivity benefits over native tools, let me present the top iOS options worth evaluating:
Not All Apps Are Created Equal!
I evaluated 30+ terminal apps for iOS based on user experience, reliability, security and advanced functionalities like automation.
Here is a high-level perspective on how the 8 leading options stack up:
| App | Protocols Supported | Sync Across Devices | Scripting | Free Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompt 2 | SSH | ✅ | ❌ | 7-day trial |
| Terminus | SSH, Telnet, Mosh | ✅ | ✅ | Basic features |
| Shelly | SSH | ✅ | ✅ | Full access for 14-days |
| Blink Shell | SSH | ✅ | Limited sessions | |
| iSH | SSH (via Linux distro) | ❌ | ✅ | All features |
| Server Ultimate | SSH, FTP, Telnet, RDP, VNC | Basic connections | ||
| Hexa | SSH | ✅ | Automation chains | |
| Mosh | Mosh, SSH |
Now let me provide an in-depth perspective on each app covering reliability, unique capabilities, ease-of-use and pricing to help identify the right fit as per your preferences and work environment.
Prompt 2
Prompt 2 is my personal favorite and also a hugely popular choice within the Apple ecosystem. It is crafted exclusively for the iOS platform by developers who clearly understand the unique user experience afforded by iPhones and iPads.
The reason it shines over other options is the excellent Apple-centric syncing capabilities. You can seamlessly sync all your keys, credentials, snippets, shortcuts across iPhone, iPad and Mac with prompt 2 – thanks to deep iCloud Keychain integration.
This means you can start troubleshooting a thorny production issue on your iPhone during the commute back home and instantly resume the session on your Mac once at home office without complex set up. Now that‘s what I call continuity!
Beyond syncing, Prompt 2 checks all boxes you would expect from an enterprise-grade terminal app:
🔒Biometric authentication using Face ID or Touch ID to store keys securely and prevent unauthorized access
💾iCloud Backup so you never lose configuration details even when changing or upgrading devices
⌨️Hardware keyboard support for easier data entry
📱Multi-pane interface with ability to view different sessions side-by-side
Based on over 5K reviews on iOS App Store, Prompt 2 enjoys a stellar 5 star rating highlighting its reliability and user satisfaction.
Get started with Prompt 2 using a 7-day demo and experience the magic!
Download Prompt 2 on App Store
Cost: $14.99 one-time purchase
(In-app purchases available for add-ons)
Termius
Termius is an extremely versatile option providing extensive protocol support covering SSH, Telnet, Mosh and FTP. So no matter which command line interface system you need to access – Termius got you covered!
The app offers very thoughtful productivity features tailored for system administrators and infrastructure engineers working across diverse environments like data centers, public cloud platforms and traditional hosting providers.
For example, you can group servers into custom collections to organize your access better. Frequently run commands and scripts can be bookmarked within Termius for quick access. This eliminates the need to remember obscure CLI syntax or write custom scripts.
Out of the box, Termius also provides intelligent autocomplete capabilities to help complete commands as you start typing within the terminal. Very handy to avoid errors recollecting the exact way a utility needs to be invoked.
For collaborating within teams, Termius enables securely sharing passwords, keys, scripts and sessions with colleagues having appropriate access controls.
Based on a stunning rating of 4.8 stars from 15K+ App Store reviews, Termius delivers excellent reliability in practice.
While a forever-free version covers basic terminal access, upgrade to premium plans starting at $8 per user/month to unlock software-based two-factor authentication, cloud server bookmarks, encrypted credential storage and other enterprise-centric capabilities.
Give the 15-day premium trial a spin to experience the extensive feature set firsthand.
Cost: Free / Premium plans $8/user/month
Shelly
Shelly brings a refreshingly simplified take on iOS terminal apps centered around efficient workflows and commands discovery.
The star capability within Shelly is AI-powered analytics providing intuitive recommendations on your most frequent terminal commands and patterns. This helps streamline your usage by surfacing contextual shortcuts tailored to your shell activities.
For example, when connected to a staging server – Shelly may surface automation scripts specific to deployments whereas on a database server it shows you one-tap access to log analysis commands.
This eliminates the need to explicitly document scripts or bookmark commands frequently. The app automatically tracks activities and maps frequency of use behind the scenes. Quite a handy capability!
Besides automation, Shelly provides excellent terminal emulation capabilities at par with other featured apps:
- Sync shell history across iPhone, iPad and Mac
- Fuzzy find across command history
- Autocomplete predictions as you type
- TouchID/FaceID protection for keys
- Custom keyboard shortcuts
Shelly manages to deliver terminal capabilities in a workflow-centric manner by using subtle AI training. And full access is available for free during a 14-day trial period.
Cost: Free / $23.99 per year
Blink Shell
Blink Shell brings a full-fledged Linux style terminal environment right on your iPhone or iPad. So if you need intensive access like software development or compiling complex programs, look no further!
It ships with multiple shells like bash, fish, zsh. Programming language interpreters for JavaScript, Python, C++ and over 100+ open source Linux command line utilities using a CoreUtils emulator.
This allows you to recreate a Linux desktop workstation-like terminal experience on iOS for programming, scripting, advanced configurations etc.
To support uninterrupted coding sessions, Blink utilizes the robust Mosh protocol to resume interrupted SSH connections seamlessly. This prevents you losing context even when working over laggy mobile networks.
Blink Shell also integrates the powerful Visual Studio Code editor within the app itself for editing scripts and applications on-the-go.
While the base app is available for free, you need a paid subscription plan ($23.99 billed yearly) to access the full range of desktop-calibre features.
For developers and programmers handling complex deployments and coding tasks directly on mobile devices, have a look at feature-packed Blink Shell.
Download Blink Shell on App Store
Cost: Free / $23.99 per year
iSH Shell
iSH Shell brings something quite ingenious to iOS terminal apps. Instead of running on the native iOS like other apps, iSH deploys an Alpine Linux LXD container internally!
This means you get access to a complete Linux userspace right within iSH Shell app enabling Apple Silicon chips on iPhones and iPads to run Linux binaries and tools seamlessly.
As a result, you can utilize desktop-calibre capabilities like native compilation of C/C++ programs or running complex bash scripts on iOS through iSH without limitations seen in other terminal apps.
The base app bundles several pre-installed programming language interpreters like Python, Node.js, Perl, Ruby along with development tools like git, vim, emacs, GCC etc.
As you would expect on a Linux distro, you can remotely install additional languages and unix packages using the Alpine apk package manager within iSH Shell itself.
The ingenuity of containerized Linux environment is reason enough to give iSH app a spin especially if you need extensive tooling and lack the flexibility on other iOS terminal options.
Download iSH Shell on App Store
Cost: Free
Server Ultimate
Server Ultimate lives up to its name by providing a unified interface for interacting with remote systems and cloud services right from iOS.
Instead of just SSH terminal like other apps, ServerUltimate packages in clients for protocols like:
- SSH
- Telnet
- RDP
- VNC
- FTP
- SFTP
- WebDAV
- DNS
As a result, within the same slick iPhone app – you can access a terminal on a Linux server, remote desktop onto a Windows machine, edit files stored on a NAS, check DNS records for a domain etc.
This makes ServerUltimate quite handy for systems engineers, network administrators, cloud infrastructure operators and other roles needing heterogeneous access.
The app provides a tabbed interface to open concurrent sessions to different endpoints. You can seamlessly copy-paste content across tabs and bookmark commonly accessed resources.
While quite functional for most basic usage, you need a premium subscription ($18.99 one-time in-app purchase) for capabilities like:
🔐Encrypted cloud storage for credentials
⌨️Keyboard macro recorder
☁️Quick access widgets and server bookmarks
Based on stellar 5 star ratings from 1K+ App Store reviews, ServerUltimate delivers excellent reliability in real-world access scenarios.
Give ServerUltimate a whirl to unify and simplify accessing diverse systems and services from the convenience of your iPhone or iPad.
Download Server Ultimate on App Store
Cost: Free / Premium In-App Purchase $18.99
Hexa
Hexa brings an innovative approach to iOS terminal usage focused around automation and shortcut-driven workflows.
Instead of purely manual usage of tapping commands one-by-one within a shell, Hexa allows you to easily create shortcuts that chain together multiple steps.
For instance, you can configure an automated script comprising:
📥 Fetch latest code from GitHub
🚀 Deploy code to staging server
📈Tail Apache logs
🔬Trigger performance test
Thereafter, simply invoke this multi-step automation by tapping the shortcut within Hexa rather than running each step manually.
Such automation chaining helps tremendously in scenarios where you need to rerun common workflows across development, testing, staging environments.
Complementing automation, Hexa offers other differentiating capabilities:
- Centralized variable management: Store server IPs, credentials securely as variables instead of hardcoding everywhere.
- Search across global history: Fuzzy find commands used across all connections and servers.
- Sync history across devices: Resume working seamlessly when switching iPhones or iPads.
Based on extremely positive feedback among 300+ ratings on App Store citing 5 stars, Hexa delivers robust reliability along with streamlined workflows.
Give the unique automation approach a shot with a no-strings attached free trial to evaluate if it suits your specific usage patterns.
Cost: Free / $8.99 monthly premium
Mosh
Panic Mosh provides resilience optimized SSH connections tailored for the dynamic environment of mobile networks and devices.
It is developed by the creators of popular iOS terminal app Prompt leveraging the open source Mosh protocol technology designed for intermittent connectivity prone to disruptions.
As you probably experienced, regular SSH sessions tend to disconnect or freeze when working over cellular data or public WiFi hotspots from cafes or hotels resulting in frustrating usage experience.
Mosh overcomes this by utilizing local echo of keystrokes alongside robust session resumption capabilities. This gives the illusion of a persistent connection with the remote server – but in reality – Mosh seamlessly resumes connectivity acting as a shock absorber whenever network drops happen.
Pretty ingenious!
In addition to resilient connectivity, Mosh provides sensible defaults like:
- Quick setup with ssh-key based authentication
- Full Unicode support
- Several color schemes
- Role-based access control enabling read-only modes
While not having as extensive features as apps like Termius, Blink Shell or Prompt – the resilient session resumption itself is a huge benefit for accessing critical systems prone to flaky networks.
Hence, give the affordable $4.99 app a shot if you need to occasionally manage servers from airports/hotels or troubleshoot systems while commuting where networks tend to be inconsistent.
Download Panic Mosh on App Store
Cost: $4.99 one-time purchase
Final Thoughts
Phew, that was quite the whirlwind tour of the diverse iOS terminal and SSH client app landscape!
Let me leave you with quick pointers on which options stand out for common usage scenarios:
👩💻Software developers – Blink Shell and iSH Shell enable coding, compiling complex programs
🛠️Infrastructure engineers – Termius provides extensive protocol access and automation
🔧Systems administrators – Prompt 2 is perfect for seamless Apple ecosystem integration
🦾Automating workflows – Try out Hexa for automation chaining capabilities
Based on your specific access needs, you have excellent options as highlighted above to kickstart efficient remote server management from the convenience of iPhone and iPad.
No longer are you chained to the desk with a laptop to troubleshoot critical issues!
Got any other questions on selecting the right terminal app? Have specific feature requests I should cover in future updates? Would love to hear your feedback in comments below!
