Userscripts vs a
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Userscripts
This open-source Safari extension allows you to run custom JavaScript and CSS code on any website. Enhance your browsing experience with personalized styling, automatic redirects, and ad-blocking.
- Run custom JavaScript
- Inject custom CSS
- Automatic page redirection
- Website page manipulation
- Custom ad-blocking
- Open source
- No user tracking
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Userscripts is an open source Safari extension that lets you save and run arbitrary bits of JavaScript (and CSS) code for the websites you visit. Features: - Open source - No user tracking Use cases: - Automatic page redirection - Website page manipulation (styling, element creation) - Custom ad-blocking - Custom code injection - Custom style injection If you're looking for a way to easily create quality of life Javacript code snippets for your web browsing experience, give Userscripts a try. Visit the GitHub repository for help or to report bugs: https://github.com/quoid/userscripts/
a
Run Unix commands locally on your iOS device with a powerful terminal emulator. Supports file transfer, editing, scripting with Python and Lua, and network utilities. Integrates with Shortcuts and supports multiple windows for multitasking.
- Local Unix terminal emulator
- SSH client
- File transfer (scp, curl)
- Text editing (vim, ed)
- Scripting (Python, Lua, JavaScript)
- Network utilities (nslookup, ping)
- Shortcuts integration
- Multi-window support
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a-Shell mini is a complete local terminal emulator, allowing to run most Unix commands on you iOS device. You can transfer files using scp and curl, edit them with vim and ed, process them using grep, awk and sed. Work with git repositories using lg2. Most commands are compiled for iOS native Arm64 format, making them fast and well integrated with iOS underlying BSD Unix. a-Shell mini includes Python, Lua, JavaScript and webAssembly for programming and scripting. It also includes native ffmpeg and convert for fast image and video conversion. There are also multiple network utilities: nslookup, ping, whois, ifconfig... Type help for help, help -l to get the full list of commands. a-Shell mini can be controlled from Shortcuts: run commands in order, process files in a-Shell, get the results as text or files, transfer files to other apps... a-Shell mini uses iPadOS 13+ “multiple windows” ability, so you can run multiple shells at the same time, with different commands, in different directories. You can edit a file in one window with vim and process it in the other with python. a-Shell mini is a minimalist terminal, designed to have a very small footprint (less than 250 MB). If you need more commands, please consider a-Shell, which has more Python packages, more JavaScript modules, Perl, make, a C and C++ compiler and TeX.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Userscripts at free against a's paid. a's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 4.3). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
a holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 190 and 122 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 78% and 78% positive.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly monthly. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | Userscripts | a |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (190 ratings) | 4.6 (122 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 78.2% of reviews — better | 78.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 190 — better | 122 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #16 — better | #29 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 383 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Justin Wasack | Nicolas Holzschuch |
Customer experience
Userscripts
a
User reviews
Userscripts
From 190 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Works well to inject CSS on iPad in Safari
- 👍 Best thing since sliced bread
- 💡 Allows you to do thousands of things that were previously desktop only
- 🔒 Very stable and works flawlessly with Safari
- 👍 Excellent Safari extension
Room to improve
- 🐛 Satisfactory to an extent, stops working sometimes
- 🐛 Broke until reinstall
- 🐛 Slowed my Safari down to a crawl
- 🐛 Unpredictable when it applies scripts, but still useful
- 🐛 It's been way too unpredictable for a while now
a
From 122 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great app for shortcuts
- 🚀 Efficient and functional
- 💡 Useful for IT tasks
- ✨ Free and awesome
- 💻 Good for remote server connection
Room to improve
- 🐛 Font size not adjustable
- 🐛 Keyboard icons too large
- 🐛 App deletes itself
- 🐛 Rotating screen scrambles display
- 🐛 Pasting text shows strange characters
Bugs and requests
Userscripts
Reported bugs
4 issues- Failed to load user data
- Saying there's an error when trying to download something
- Won't work, keeps saying there's an issue and retry
- Disappeared from Safari preferences and won't return after troubleshooting
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for Safari Tech Preview
- Allow editing of userscripts from the browser extension popup
- Allow creation of a new script from the Safari Extension for the current site
- Allow specifying the order in which scripts should be loaded
- Add support for running scripts in normal mode, private mode or both
a
Reported bugs
12 issues- Keyboard icons comically large
- App deletes itself
- Rotating iPhone/iPad scrambles display
- Pasting text results in strange characters
- App only uses half of the screen when editing files
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Command not found errors for all commands
- App crashes on launch after update
- Cannot get own absolute path
- Cannot execute own programs
- App messes up .txt file association
- Trouble selecting characters to copy and paste
- No module named requests in shortcuts
Requested features
8 requests- Option to use old keyboard buttons
- Add openssl support
- Add libx265 codec for ffmpeg
- Support telnet command
- Add possibility to compile from source
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Make Ubuntu default
- Add expansion of keys (e.g., echo {a..z})
- Adjustable font size
In-app purchases
Userscripts
No in-app purchases
a
No in-app purchases
