a vs ActivitySmith

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.

ActivitySmith lets you send Live Activities and Push Notifications to your iOS device(s) from any backend. Keep long-running work visible at a glance: stream progress, step-by-step status, and outcomes to your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Use Push Notifications for high-signal alerts (failures, incidents, signups, sales, crashes, etc). Anything that can make an HTTP request can update a Live Activity or send a Push Notification - CI/CD, servers, cron, agents, webhooks, or plain curl. Use cases: - CI/CD deployments and build pipelines - Long-running jobs (migrations, backups, ETL) and background agents - On-call alerts and incident workflows - Business events (sales, signups, trial conversions) - Home Automation How it works: - Install ActivitySmith and pair your device - Create API key - Send custom Push Notifications with a simple API call - Trigger Live Activities to track deployments or any other long-running processes in a real-time - Target one or more paired devices as needed - Use widgets to track key metrics from your lock screen SDKs: Node.js, PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, CLI Integrations: GitHub, GitLab, Vercel, Railway, Netlify, Sentry, Linear, Zapier, n8n, and more...