rootshell vs BYOT Coding Agent
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.
BYOT Coding Agent
Control a coding agent running on your computer directly from your mobile device. Browse projects, send prompts with files, and monitor assistant activity in real-time. Manage permission requests and review session details.
- Connect to OpenCode server
- Send prompts with photos/files
- Live stream assistant text and tool activity
- Inspect tool inputs, progress, and errors
- Answer permission requests
- Review session diffs
- Switch between saved servers
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BYOT is a native client for OpenCode, the open-source coding agent. Connect to the OpenCode server running on your own computer and drive coding sessions from your iPhone or iPad. Browse projects and sessions, send prompts with photos or files, and watch assistant text, reasoning, and tool activity stream live. Inspect tool inputs, progress, output, and errors. Answer permission requests and questions from your server, queue follow-up prompts, and choose models from your server's catalog. Review session diffs when your server supports them. Switch between saved servers, group sessions by project or browse them in one list, and find sessions by title, project, or path. Unsent text and attachments stay on this iPhone across session changes and app relaunches. Choose System, Light, or Dark appearance. With the optional BYOT companion running on your computer, get notifications for approvals, questions, completed turns, and errors. Enable the computer queue to keep accepted prompts running in order while BYOT is closed. Your computer must remain awake and the companion connected. Work that has not finished uploading needs BYOT to reconnect; uncertain delivery requires your review. BYOT supports OpenCode 1 and OpenCode 2 beta servers with automatic protocol detection. Available features depend on the server version; some OpenCode 2 beta servers do not expose per-session diffs. Your server does the work. BYOT renders its responses and sends your instructions over HTTPS. There is no BYOT account or sign-up, and no tracking. Anonymous usage data is off until you turn it on, and it never includes your prompts, code, server addresses, or project names. Server passwords are stored in the iOS Keychain. In direct mode, prompts and attachments go to your configured server and the model providers you enable there. Optional notifications and the computer queue use the BYOT relay for device registration, delivery, and encrypted queued content. See the privacy policy for storage and retention details. Requires an OpenCode server you operate, reachable over HTTPS, for example through Tailscale. Notifications and the computer queue also require the BYOT companion. BYOT is an independent client and is not affiliated with the OpenCode project.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: rootshell at 53 against BYOT Coding Agent's 2. rootshell also leads on chart position (#171 vs unranked). BYOT Coding Agent's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs fortnightly) and review sentiment (100% vs 91%). On price, rating, 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for rootshell against 5.0 for BYOT Coding Agent. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: rootshell has 53 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 91% of rootshell's written reviews are positive against 100% of BYOT Coding Agent's.
rootshell ships an update fortnightly, BYOT Coding Agent weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | rootshell | BYOT Coding Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (53 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 91.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 53 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #171 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 376 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rootshell LLC | Bogeybot LLC |
Customer experience
rootshell
BYOT Coding Agent
In-app purchases
rootshell
No in-app purchases
BYOT Coding Agent
No in-app purchases









