Comparison

Prompt 3 vs gterm

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

Head to head
About

Prompt 3

A fully-native terminal emulator for Apple devices, offering robust connectivity for SSH, Mosh, and more. It features fast emulation, customizable clips, secure authentication, and cross-device syncing for a seamless experience.

Highlights
  • Native terminal emulator
  • SSH, Mosh, Eternal Terminal, Telnet support
  • Panic Sync for cross-device server syncing
  • Superfast emulation with GPU acceleration
  • Customizable clips for commands
  • FaceID/TouchID authentication
  • Jump Hosts and Agent Forwarding
Features
Read full description

Prompt 3 is our #1 fully-native terminal emulator for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and now, Apple Vision Pro! Yes, with one purchase, you get four platforms.  Supporting SSH, Mosh, Eternal Terminal, Telnet, and Local Shells (on Mac), you can stay connected even on the most unstable networks. And with Panic Sync, your servers sync everywhere. For terminals, this is the only app you need. NOW EVEN BETTER: • SSH, Telnet, and Local (for Mac) Rock-solid and reliable connectivity to your hosts. • Mosh and Eternal Terminal Keep your terminal open even when you get disconnected. Mosh is optimized for high-latency, low-throughput networks. Eternal Terminal is great for when you need to keep your full terminal history on a flaky connection. • Lower Price Everything is so expensive right now. So we made Prompt cheaper. Take that, capitalism. • Superfast Emulation We retooled the text engine in Prompt 3 to be up to 10x faster, including GPU acceleration, and with improved terminal emulation, you can run nvim inside tmux without breaking a sweat. • Clips Put your most-used commands and text bits into clips and access them with a single tap via Prompt’s keyboard bar. Clips can be stored globally or per-server. • Secure Enclave Authenticate with FaceID and TouchID. The keys will stay secure on your device. • Panic Sync Sync your favorite servers, passwords, private keys, and clips, between Prompt on all of your devices. • Customizable Make Prompt perfect with new themes, fonts, and a very configurable iOS keyboard. • Jump Hosts and Agent Forwarding Access corporate servers, even at the beach. • Mouse Support Use your mouse to interact with TUI-based apps that run through the terminal. AND YES, A DARK ICON. What more can we say? TAKE CONTROL FROM ANYWHERE, INCLUDING YOUR MAC AND APPLE VISION PRO. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY PROMPT 3. © Panic EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

gterm

Features
Read full description

gterm is a real terminal for iOS. It renders with Ghostty's GPU engine for true xterm/VT emulation, connects straight to your servers over SSH, keeps your keys on device, and ships an AI command assistant that writes the commands for you. It's the same renderer and VT parser as the Ghostty desktop app. iOS can't fork/exec a local shell, so gterm drives the terminal straight from the SSH stream through a custom passthru IO backend added to libghostty — giving you a real terminal in a sandboxed iOS surface. GPU-RENDERED TERMINAL Real xterm/VT emulation via Ghostty's libghostty, drawn on Metal. Colors, ligatures, and reflow that feel native — not a web shim. SSH-NATIVE Connects with swift-nio-ssh — password and public-key auth, a PTY shell, live window resizing, and trust-on-first-use host-key verification. KEYS STAY ON DEVICE Import Ed25519 / ECDSA private keys into the iOS Keychain — device-only, never synced. Pick one or more keys to try per host. SHELL-GRADE KEYBOARD A custom accessory keyboard with the keys iOS forgets — Esc, Ctrl, Alt, Tab, arrows, and sticky modifiers for real TUI navigation. AI COMMAND ASSISTANT Describe what you want in plain English. The AI reads your recent commands and visible screen, proposes a command, and shows it to you for review before it runs. AI AUTO-COMPLETION As you type, suggestions surface above the keyboard — from your history and from your provider. Bring your own key; it's stored masked in the Keychain. Open source: https://github.com/madeye/gterm

Screenshots

Prompt 34 screens
gterm4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Prompt 3 at Free against gterm's $1.99. Prompt 3 also leads on device support (4 vs 2). gterm's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 6 weeks). On ads, chart position 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

Prompt 3 is free to download; gterm costs $1.99 up front. Prompt 3 sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. gterm asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Prompt 3 ships an update every 6 weeks, gterm every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 27, 2026 and September 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Prompt 3 versus gterm: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPrompt 3gterm
PriceFree — better$1.99
Rating4.3 (349 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews22.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings349 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationPaid—
Best chart rank#28#18 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB48 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPanic, Inc.Shanghai Tangzixiang Information Technology Co., Ltd

Bugs and requests

Prompt 3

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Server list randomly disappears with Panic Sync
  • Crashes when connected to external monitor
  • Black screen issues with custom font configurations
  • Sync issues causing data loss
  • Vertical display sync issues

Requested features

8 requests
  • Shortcuts support on macOS
  • Ability to click and select within commands
  • Local shell option
  • Run clips on server connection
  • Export/backup clips
Show 3 more
  • Alt/Meta key support for Emacs
  • iCloud sync option
  • Sign in with Apple for Panic Sync

gterm

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Prompt 3

Subscriptions1
  • Prompt 3 iOS + Mac (Annual)7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Prompt 3 One Time$49.99
None

gterm

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Prompt 3 free?
Prompt 3 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is gterm free?
gterm costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Prompt 3 or gterm have ads?
Neither Prompt 3 nor gterm shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Prompt 3 or gterm?
Prompt 3 ships an update every 6 weeks, and gterm every 3 weeks. Most recently, Prompt 3 was updated on September 27, 2026 and gterm on September 14, 2026.
Which is more popular, Prompt 3 or gterm?
Prompt 3 currently peaks at #28 in the App Store charts, and gterm at #18. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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