rootshell vs Zedra
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
rootshell
This app provides a powerful, desktop-class terminal emulator with GPU acceleration and native support for SSH, Mosh, and tssh. It offers features like system-wide VPN over SSH, native Git integration, and AI assistance for hands-free command execution and web searches.
- GPU-accelerated terminal
- Native SSH and Mosh support
- System-wide VPN over SSH
- Native Git client
- AI voice and text agents
- Cloud and Kubernetes integration
- Hardware security key support
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rootshell is a desktop-class terminal emulator built on libghostty — the GPU-accelerated engine behind the Ghostty desktop terminal. A local shell on every platform, Mac screen sharing, native SSH, mosh-compatible roaming, tssh, system-wide VPN, native git, and Metal rendering in a single app. NEW: SCREEN SHARING Reach your Mac's screen, not just its shell, from your iPhone or iPad. High Performance mode streams up to 4K at 60 FPS, fully encrypted. Match Client sizing spins up a virtual display sized exactly to your device: no panning, no letterboxing, with remote system audio. Standard VNC mode covers Linux and headless machines, and tunnels over SSH jump hosts. Nothing to install on the Mac — turn on Screen Sharing and connect. Touch, trackpad, hardware keyboard, and two-way clipboard all work, in tabs, splits, or full screen. METAL-ACCELERATED TERMINAL Built on libghostty's Zig core with direct Metal rendering. Smooth scrolling, zero-flicker synchronized output, and full mouse capture for tmux, vim, and zellij. Tabs, split panes, and persistent scrollback across app restarts. THREE REMOTE PROTOCOLS, ONE APP • SSH — Native Swift SSH client with Ed25519, ECDSA, RSA, and post-quantum ML-KEM + ML-DSA. Jump hosts, port and agent forwarding, and Keychain password storage. • Rootshell Roam — Mosh-compatible sessions survive network changes and app restarts. Multipath TCP bonds WiFi and cellular. Predictive local echo keeps typing responsive. STUN-based NAT traversal punches through firewalls. • tssh with QUIC (TLS 1.3) and KCP transport for lower latency, full native scrollback, and session resumption. NATIVE TMUX INTEGRATION Attach in control mode (tmux -CC) and tmux windows become native tabs, panes become real splits — copy, search, and scroll with native gestures. A dashboard shows live window previews, and tabs survive restarts over tssh. SSH VPN Turn any SSH or tssh session into a system-wide VPN. Route all device traffic through your remote server. No extra software on the server — if you can SSH to it, you can VPN through it. NATIVE GIT Clone, commit, diff, log, blame, rebase, cherry-pick, and worktree — in native Swift with SSH transport. Syntax-highlighted pager output and optional AI-generated commit messages. VOICE AI AGENT Talk to an always-on assistant over Gemini Live. It reads scrollback, runs SSH commands hands-free, searches the web, and asks permission before anything risky. OPTIONAL TEXT AI Chat with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or 400+ models via OpenRouter. Bring your own API key. HARDWARE SECURITY KEYS Private keys never leave hardware. FIDO2/WebAuthn authentication with touch-to-sign. SANDBOXED LOCAL SHELL A full local shell with vim 9.1, Helix, SFTP, SCP, curl, jq, mtr, and standard Unix utilities. The rf browser offers yazi-style miller columns with image previews and git indicators. croc peer-to-peer file transfer, flag-aware tab completion, and prompt themes. CLOUD & KUBERNETES Connect to AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean, Akamai (Linode), and Tailscale. Browse instances, access serial consoles, generate EKS kubeconfigs, and debug Kubernetes nodes with ephemeral pods. 450+ THEMES & VISUAL EFFECTS Over 450 color themes with location-based day/night switching. Animated backgrounds — solar, ocean waves, starfields, fireflies — plus Shadertoy-compatible shaders and custom fonts. CUSTOMIZABLE TOOLBAR Drag, reorder, and hide 45+ built-in keys. Create custom keys that send text, key combos, or sequences. Sticky modifiers with tap and double-tap lock. Separate iPhone and iPad layouts. CONNECTION MANAGEMENT Save profiles with folders, tags, and iCloud sync. Quick Connect autocompletes from history and cloud instances. Background SSH tunnels with auto-start. Siri Shortcuts integration. KEYBOARD POWER FEATURES QMK-style mod-tap keys, dictation and CJK input, customizable shortcuts, and Option key as Alt for international layouts.
Zedra
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Your coding agents run on your own machine. Zedra puts them in your pocket. Start a task on your laptop, walk away, and keep working from your phone. Zedra connects straight to your development machine, so you can watch agents work, answer their questions, review the diff, and start the next task from anywhere. WORKS WITH THE AGENTS YOU ALREADY USE Claude Code, Codex, opencode, and any other CLI agent or shell command. Zedra runs a real terminal, not a chat mirror, so nothing about your setup has to change. RUN A SWARM, NOT A SESSION Most work is several agents at once. Zedra shows every session on one screen with live status, so you can see which agent is thinking, which one finished, and which one is blocked waiting on you. NEVER MISS AN APPROVAL Agents stop and ask before they touch anything important. Zedra sends a push notification the moment one needs you, so a waiting agent is never a surprise you find twenty minutes later. A REAL TERMINAL Full terminal emulation with color, mouse reporting, and TUI support. A keyboard row built for code gives you arrows, tab, escape, and control without fighting the on-screen keyboard. Paste screenshots straight into a prompt. READ THE DIFF BEFORE YOU MERGE Syntax-highlighted diffs, file trees, and git status. Select code in the editor or a file preview and send it straight to an agent with Add to Chat, without switching apps. CONNECTS DIRECTLY, NOT THROUGH US Pair by scanning a QR code once. Zedra builds an encrypted peer-to-peer connection between your phone and your machine, and falls back to a relay only when your network blocks a direct route. Relays forward encrypted packets they cannot read, so Zedra never sees your code. Agents still talk to whichever provider you configured them with. OPEN HOST The host daemon is open source and runs on macOS and Linux. Install it with one command, keep it running in the background, and pair as many devices as you want. Requires a Mac or Linux machine running the Zedra host.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is chart position: rootshell at #201 against Zedra's unranked. On price, update cadence, 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.
rootshell ships an update every 2 weeks, Zedra fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | rootshell | Zedra |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (40 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 93.8% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 40 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Best chart rank | #201 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 344 MB | 90 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rootshell LLC | Tan Le |
In-app purchases
rootshell
No in-app purchases
Zedra
No in-app purchases





