Comparison

a vs daily.dev

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

a

This app provides a local Unix terminal emulator for iOS devices, enabling users to run various Unix commands, edit files, and process data. It includes support for multiple programming languages and network utilities, with integration for iOS Shortcuts and multi-window functionality.

Highlights
  • Local Unix terminal emulator
  • Run Unix commands
  • File transfer (scp, curl)
  • Text editing (vim, ed)
  • Programming languages (Python, Lua, C)
  • Network utilities (ping, nslookup)
  • iOS Shortcuts integration
Features
Read full description

a-Shell is a complete local terminal emulator, allowing to run most Unix commands on your iOS device. You can transfer files using scp and curl, edit them with vim and ed, process them using grep, awk and sed. You can work with git repositories using lg2.  Most commands are compiled for iOS native Arm64 format, making them fast and well integrated with the BSD Unix that powers iOS/iPadOS. a-Shell includes Python, Lua, Perl, JavaScript, C, C++ for programming and TeX (texlive 2025, with Tikz and LuaTeX) for text processing. 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 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 uses iOS 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. Compile your C or C++ programs to webAssembly using clang or clang++, and execute the resulting binary. A complete webAssembly SDK is included (WASI-libc). a-Shell is the complete version. If you need a smaller app, and you don't need a C compiler, a TeX engine, or numpy and matplotlib, there is a-Shell mini.

About

daily.dev

Stay updated with the latest in tech and AI through a personalized feed of articles, newsletters, and videos from over 2,000 sources. Discover trending topics, engage with a developer community, and save content for later.

Highlights
  • Personalized feed from 2,000+ sources
  • AI-powered content curation
  • TLDR summaries for quick skimming
  • Community discussions and upvotes
  • Save articles and bookmarks
  • Cross-platform sync with web and extensions
  • Developer API for agents
Features
Read full description

daily.dev is where developers keep up with what's happening in tech. It pulls posts from 2,000+ blogs, newsletters and YouTube channels, and puts the ones developers are actually reading and upvoting into one feed, tuned to the tags you follow. Lately that's a lot of AI: what changed in Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini, new models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, AI agents, MCP, local LLMs with Ollama, and whatever vibe coding means this week. But it's just as much the rest of the job: open source, Linux, self-hosting, security, Rust, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Go, Docker, Kubernetes, system design, game dev and career advice. Plus what shipped at GitHub, AWS, Cloudflare, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Vercel, the occasional outage postmortem, and memes. HOW IT WORKS • Your feed starts from your stack and adjusts as you read • Every post has a TLDR, so you can skim first and open what's worth it • Popular, Most Upvoted and Best Discussions show what everyone else is reading • Happening Now is a quick read of today's headlines as they break • Articles open on a reading screen inside the app, with the comments one swipe away • Why am I seeing this? on any For You post shows what put it in your feed, so you can tune it • Topic chips above the feed jump straight to AI, web dev, DevOps and more • Hide tags, sources or whole formats (memes, listicles, opinion pieces) you don't care about • Search posts, tags, sources, people and Squads THE COMMUNITY PART • Comments under every post, often more useful than the article • Squads: public or private groups around a language, a framework, a company or your team • Messages, polls, posting your own links, and upvotes that decide what rises • A profile with your stack, your experience and a DevCard you can share • Reputation, achievements, quests, leaderboards and a reading streak, if you're into that • Awards and Cores if you want to tip someone for a great post SAVE IT FOR LATER • Bookmarks and Read it later with reminders, synced with the web app and the browser extension • Reading history, for the article you skimmed on Tuesday and can't find • Best-of archives by month and year for any topic • The same account on the web, and in the Chrome and Edge extension that turns every new tab into your feed • Dark or light mode, list or grid, a different app icon, and notifications only for what you pick FOR YOUR AGENTS daily.dev has a public API and an MCP server. Hook it up to Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or VS Code and your agent can search what developers are reading, pull your feed and save bookmarks. There's a plugin marketplace too. BRIEFINGS Your first Presidential Briefing is free: a 3 to 5 minute AI summary of what changed in your corner of tech, split into must know, good to know and the critical take. daily.dev Plus Optional. Plus adds: • Unlimited and scheduled briefings, in the app, by email or in Slack • Clickbait Shield on every feed, which rewrites misleading titles so they say what the post is about • Advanced custom feeds and keyword filters • Bookmark folders and notes • Titles and TLDRs auto-translated into 10 languages • No ads, and higher API limits daily.dev is free and open source, built in public at github.com/dailydotdev.

Screenshots

a4 screens
daily.dev4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: a at none against daily.dev's 10. a also leads on ads (none vs shown) and rating (4.6 vs 4.3). daily.dev's advantage is update cadence (every 11 days vs monthly). On price, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. daily.dev sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. a asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

a holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: a has 575 ratings behind it against 41, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 78% of a's written reviews are positive against 68% of daily.dev's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

a ships an update monthly, daily.dev every 11 days. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 3 level
a versus daily.dev: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameteradaily.dev
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (575 ratings) — better4.3 (41 ratings)
Positive reviews78.4% of reviews — better68.4% of reviews
Number of ratings575 — better41
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 11 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#26 — better#179
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better16.6
Further details — not scored
Size2.1 GB21 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperNicolas HolzschuchDaily Dev Ltd

Customer experience

a

All ratings570 ratings
Positive88.2%
Neutral4.7%
Negative7.0%
Written reviews393 reviews
Positive78.4%
Neutral9.4%
Negative12.2%

daily.dev

All ratings41 ratings
Positive78.0%
Neutral9.8%
Negative12.2%
Written reviews57 reviews
Positive68.4%
Neutral12.3%
Negative19.3%

User reviews

a

From 575 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Powerful terminal with Linux commands
  • 👍 Useful for programming and development
  • 🔒 Secure and reliable
  • 💡 Impressive capabilities for an iOS app
  • 👍 Helpful documentation and developer support

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and bugs
  • 🔍 Limited customization options
  • 🔍 Missing some basic terminal features
  • 🔍 Compatibility issues with certain packages

daily.dev

From 41 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Best dev platform
  • 👍 Awesome App
  • 👍 Fantastic collection of great articles
  • 👍 Highly Recommended
  • 👍 Must have for software developers

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Bit Buggy
  • 🐛 Passkey flow not working
  • 🔒 Suspicious sign-up process

Bugs and requests

a

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Toolbar buttons not accessible in portrait mode on some devices
  • Pasting from clipboard can insert unexpected characters
  • Sourcing certain script files causes crashes

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for package managers like Homebrew or APT
  • Implement more advanced shell features like job control and better tab completion
  • Integrate Git for version control
  • Allow installing additional packages and libraries
  • Improve clipboard and file management integration

daily.dev

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Buttons not working
  • Unable to sign up

Requested features

1 request
  • Web app option

In-app purchases

None

a

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

daily.dev

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly$9.991 Month
  • Annual$89.991 Year
One-time8
  • 100 Cores$1.49
  • 300 Cores$4.49
  • 600 Cores$8.99
Show 5 more
  • 1,200 Cores$17.99
  • 8,000 Cores$114.99
  • 25,000 Cores$364.99
  • 50,000 Cores$549.00
  • 100,000 Cores$999.99

Questions

Is a free?
a is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is daily.dev free?
daily.dev is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, a or daily.dev?
a is rated higher. a averages 4.6 out of 5 from 575 ratings, while daily.dev averages 4.3 from 41 ratings.
Do a or daily.dev have ads?
daily.dev shows ads; a does not.
Which is updated more often, a or daily.dev?
a ships an update monthly, and daily.dev every 11 days. Most recently, a was updated on November 11, 2026 and daily.dev on November 8, 2026.
Which is more popular, a or daily.dev?
a currently peaks at #26 in the App Store charts, and daily.dev at #179. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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