GoShell vs JS Shell
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
GoShell
A minimalist, high-performance terminal for engineers, offering fast and reliable remote and local workflows. Manage heterogeneous sessions side by side with multi-layout workspaces and smart resizing. Supports SSH, local shell, serial connections, and ZMODEM file transfers.
- SSH, Local Shell, Serial management
- Multi-Layout Workspace (tabs, grid, floating panes)
- Smart Resizing with adaptive font scaling
- Advanced Font System with per-session settings
- ZMODEM File Transfer (upload/download)
- Connection Organization (folders, search, recent)
- Theming & Appearance customization
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GoShell is a minimalist, high-performance terminal for engineers who want fast, reliable remote and local workflows—without the bloat. Core Capabilities: SSH, Local Shell, Serial: manage heterogeneous sessions side by side. Multi-Layout Workspace: switch between tabs, grid, or free-floating draggable panes. Smart Resizing: precise pty dimension sync (Vim-friendly) with adaptive font scaling. Advanced Font System: per-session and global font size, full system font discovery, monospace detection. ZMODEM File Transfer: seamless sz/rz upload & download with progress tracking. Connection Organization: folder grouping, search, recent list, rich metadata. Keyboard Power: global shortcuts for switching, reconnecting, resizing, clearing, word motion. Theming & Appearance: custom terminal themes, inverted selection, dynamic scrollbar styling. Performance Engine: batched output, debounced renders, memory-safe listener management. Data Portability: encrypted import/export of connections and preferences. Reliability Layer: multi-auth (key + password fallback), connection health monitoring. Why GoShell: Focused: ships only what accelerates real workflows. Fast: tuned rendering and resize pipeline. Compatible: works with macOS servers and many other network appliances. Transparent: actively maintained, versioned from clean git metadata. Ditch heavy clients—work cleaner with GoShell.
JS Shell
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JS Shell is a pocket-sized developer console that lets you write, run, and test web code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) directly on iOS and macOS. No Xcode, no laptop, no remote server. Paste a page in, tap run, and it loads in a real WKWebView served from a local HTTP origin. A real secure-context origin on iOS, so modern web APIs — from WebRTC to Geolocation — behave the way they should. KEY FEATURES Local HTTP server. An in-process server bound to the loopback interface. Provides a real secure-context origin so modern Web APIs work out of the box. Not reachable from outside the device. JavaScript REPL. A full JavaScript runtime backed by JavaScriptCore. Type js to enter the REPL. console.log, fetch, setTimeout, setInterval, Promises, and async await are all available. Real Promises, real microtasks, real JSON parsing, real URL parsing. Geolocation support. Test navigator.geolocation on a real iOS device. Permissions are handled by the system, just like Safari. Useful for validating location-based web features without deploying to a server. Persistent file system. Files you paste live in your Documents directory and survive app restarts. Each downloaded package gets its own directory. iCloud backup picks them up like any other app data. SQLite key-value store. A real B-tree on disk via SQLite. Read and write from your pages with same-origin fetch. No CORS configuration required. curl. A subset of curl built on URLSession. The flags X, H, d, i, I, o, A, m, v are supported. Pretty-prints JSON responses and saves binary blobs to the virtual filesystem. Archive extraction. In-process tar, tar.gz, tgz, gz, and zip extraction. No shelling out. Download a release tarball with curl, extract it, and run it immediately. Voice commands. Tap the mic, speak a command. Apple Speech framework converts speech to text. Auto-submits on detected silence. Voice commands are saved to the scripts list for one-tap re-run. Saved scripts. Save any sequence of commands as a named script. One-tap to re-run later. Voice-recognized commands are auto-saved to the scripts list for instant replay. Mac Catalyst support. Runs natively on macOS as a Mac Catalyst app. Multi-window, resizable, fullscreen-capable. The same code that runs on your iPhone runs on your Mac. DESIGNED FOR DEVELOPERS JS Shell is a tool for people who want to test web code on a real iOS device without installing Xcode, syncing files, or setting up a tunnel. It is especially useful for: Testing geolocation, camera, and microphone permission flows on iOS. Validating fetch, CORS, and cookie behavior on a real iPhone. Building small offline web tools that need persistent state. Running JavaScript snippets without opening Safari Inspector. Debugging mobile rendering edge cases on the device itself. PRIVACY JS Shell does not collect any user data. There is no telemetry, no ads, no analytics, no third-party SDKs, no remote configuration. Everything you type, paste, or download stays on your device. The local HTTP server only listens on the loopback interface and is not reachable from any network. The app forwards camera, microphone, speech recognition, and location permissions to web pages you load, exactly like Safari does on macOS. The first time a page tries to use them, iOS shows the standard system permission prompt. The first time a page tries to use them, iOS shows the standard system permission prompt.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: GoShell at 4 against JS Shell's 2. GoShell also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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.
| Parameter | GoShell | JS Shell |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 10 months | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | POSH GROUP LIMITED | Jowb Inc. |
In-app purchases
GoShell
No in-app purchases
JS Shell
No in-app purchases









