rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH

rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH

VPN over SSH and tssh

37 ratings
14 reviews
Free

Details

  • Released
  • Updated
  • April 19, 2026
  • September 13, 2026

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rootshell: Local Terminal, SSH screenshot #1 for iPhone
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About

This app provides a powerful, desktop-class terminal emulator with GPU acceleration and native support for SSH, Mosh, and tssh. It offers features like system-wide VPN over SSH, native Git integration, and AI assistance for hands-free command execution and web searches.

GPU-accelerated terminal
Native SSH and Mosh support
System-wide VPN over SSH
Native Git client
AI voice and text agents
Cloud and Kubernetes integration
Hardware security key support
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+1

What's New in rootshell

1.0.11

September 13, 2026

Tabs & Workspaces - Tab Exposé: See live previews of terminal and Screen Sharing tabs. Swipe down on the top tab bar or press Cmd-Shift-A, swipe between groups, and pinch to resize previews. Also browse tmux, herdr, zellij and zmx sessions over SSH and tssh. - Preview inactive tabs on iPad by holding Shift while hovering. Choose Compact Pills, Integrated, Ledger or Trough tab styles. - Rearrange split panes by dragging their handles, including panes in a tmux control-mode window, without closing sessions. - iPad Visor: Enable a separate drop-down local terminal above each window, toggle it with Shift-Escape and drag to resize. Notifications & Agents - Encrypted Push Notifications with Agent Hooks: Connect Claude Code and Codex hooks to get notified when a turn finishes, even in the background. Claude Code hooks also notify you when input is needed. Tap to return to the agent’s pane. Send alerts from scripts, cron jobs, builds and deployments with rootshell-notify. - Optional Live Activities show coding-agent status on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Background snapshots are marked as paused. - More accurate Codex and GitHub Copilot activity detection, with less CPU use during active agent sessions. Settings & Profiles - Sync app settings through iCloud, choose which groups sync and keep individual settings on one device. A new text config file supports local overrides and exporting settings. - Quick Settings: Press Cmd-Shift-Comma to search and change preferences without leaving the terminal. Settings search covers more controls. - Save Local Shell profiles with a starting directory and startup command. Profiles gain individual themes and keyboard shortcuts; SSH profiles can pin a multiplexer session name. - Choose whether new tabs open a local shell, duplicate the focused session or ask each time. Cmd-T follows your choice. Connections - tssh Jump Relays: Relay the full session through a jump host to reach private targets, with session recovery across network changes. Requires tsshd on both hosts. - SSH login banners now show tappable authentication links, including Tailscale SSH check-mode approval links. - Fixed synced passphrase-protected SSH keys, RSA compatibility and host-certificate verification across connection types. Jump-host target connections now use post-quantum key exchange when supported; hybrid keys support the newly standardized OpenSSH names. - Mosh overwrite prediction keeps bordered interfaces aligned on slow links. Typed commands preserve quoted options and remote arguments. - Added zmx discovery and auto-start. tmux control-mode sessions restore faster, handle heavy output more smoothly and reconnect in the background without stealing focus. Keyboard & Terminal - Optional Writing Assistance adds suggestions or autocorrect with Apple's on-screen keyboard. A redesigned selection magnifier makes selecting text easier. - Improved alternate hardware keyboard layouts, iPad emoji search, Cmd-Period and software-keyboard visibility. Pasting avoids unnecessary clipboard permission prompts. - Updated terminal engine adds animated Kitty graphics and improves Unicode handling. Local shell functions, aliases, pipelines and redirections work more reliably. - Added a true-black AMOLED theme, Silk cursor effect, optional prompt spacing and a timed keep-awake setting. Screen Sharing - Faster Standard Mode decoding, support for servers that initially report an empty desktop size, and more reliable login-screen detection. - New sessions can route reserved keyboard shortcuts to the remote computer and map physical Control+Option to remote Command, with adjustable defaults. Performance & Reliability - Faster launch, lower memory use with many tabs and a smaller app bundle. - Fixed background and lock-transition crashes, slow-DNS ping freezes, sidebar context-menu freezes, SSH connection and rekeying failures, and missing tmux startup output. Improved remote startup with fish and other login shells.

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User reviews

Great app for iPhone and iPad

This application meets every requirement, serving as a unified tool for SSH and high-performance screen sharing on Mac. One enhancement request: include a mouse pointer option alongside touch during screen sharing.

Has potential, but increasingly bloated with slop

EDIT: sorry app author i ain’t allat, happy for u / sorry that happened tho. oh also i forgot to mention: the ‘funny’ ‘jokes’ shown while connecting to a remote host are truly awful claudeslop

I was psyched when I read about this project—a libghostty-based, totally free SSH client as a desperately needed alternative to Termius & Blink? Yes, please. And the rendering is indeed very nice thanks to libghostty. There are some nice features like the Tailscale SSH integration.

Unfortunately the app has very clearly been developed with heavy LLM assistance to pile in feature upon feature, and the cracks are starting to show. Lots of awesome sounding features barely work once you give them a try—for example, screen sharing inexplicably has *seconds* of lag on the same connection Screens is perfectly snappy on. And then there are the useless features, like the location diary… why?

Also the UI, though pretty enough, is absolutely infuriating, not documented, and not discoverable. The entire project IMO is a cautionary tale on the dangers of `claude —yolo`.
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Response from developer

Feel free to reach out on our GitHub page if you are having issues. Our Screen Sharing feature is the only application in the I am aware of on this platform delivering low latency and high resolution and was created due to my frustration with the poor performance of existing apps. Screens only support low resolution and high latency under the best of network conditions limited by legacy RFB only support. It is worth confirming you are not connecting over Tailscale as the app warns as it is unable to handle the high packet rate required. High Performance mode Screen Sharing is intended for use over your local network. Location Diary is similar to Blink and its “geo” command which requires manually activating location services if you are using a TCP based connection and leave the app. Use is optional and is implemented to stay within AppStore guidelines. Fortunately in rootshell we offer multiple options that survive even a full device reboot including both mosh and tssh. Each update has detailed release notes on our website where we have already published over 130 free updates. A large number of our users prefer that we offer options to completely get out of the way turning off app UI chrome and extending full screen. This is always a trade off with discoverability.

Amazing local terminal

Feels at home with Ghostty users. Works amazingly well on iPhone and iPad and allow actual work to be done via terminal.

Works with AI coding agents and herdr.

The very best, finally!

Great design. Everything I need

Great App!

I was originally very suspicious of this app due to some detected high background activity. However, after a couple of weeks of careful packet monitoring I see I was mistaken! This is an excellent application with a nice interface and I can confirm it does not phone home.

Response from developer

We are happy to investigate any unexpected battery usage. We have provided this user with detailed instructions on how to share relevant debug logs from the application. We are not aware of other users reporting similar issues. In general, iOS and iPadOS prevent our application from running in the background except in limited system-managed scenarios. No user data is sent to us. rootshell does not collect analytics or credentials from users of this application. rootshell also goes beyond many applications by offering multiple authentication options in which we never see a private key, including support for YubiKey, FIDO2, and opkssh. Any claims suggesting otherwise are inaccurate and unsupported.

Developer apps

FAQ

What is rootshell?

rootshell is a desktop-class terminal emulator built on a GPU-accelerated engine. It offers native SSH, Mosh compatibility, system-wide VPN over SSH, native Git, and AI assistance, all within a single application.

Does rootshell have ads?

No, rootshell is ad-free. The application is available for free and does not contain advertisements, allowing for an uninterrupted user experience.

What protocols does rootshell support for remote connections?

rootshell supports native SSH with various key exchange algorithms including post-quantum options. It also offers Mosh-compatible roaming sessions and tssh integration with QUIC and KCP transport for lower latency.

Can rootshell be used as a VPN?

Yes, rootshell can turn any SSH or tssh session into a system-wide VPN. This allows you to route all your device traffic through your remote server using standard SSH, QUIC, or KCP transport without requiring extra server software.

How does rootshell integrate with tmux?

rootshell provides native tmux integration by allowing you to attach in control mode. This transforms tmux windows into native tabs and panes into real splits, enabling seamless copy, paste, search, and scrolling with native gestures.

What AI features are available in rootshell?

rootshell includes a voice AI agent that can read scrollback, run commands over SSH hands-free, and search the web. There's also optional text AI integration with models like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini for command execution and output analysis.

Is rootshell suitable for managing cloud resources?

Yes, rootshell supports connections to major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and DigitalOcean. You can browse instances, access serial consoles, and generate EKS kubeconfigs, as well as debug Kubernetes nodes.

What is the rating and update frequency of rootshell?

rootshell has a high rating of 4.8 stars from 23 ratings. It was last updated on June 29, 2026, indicating active development and maintenance.