Comparison

rootshell vs JSON Master

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Read full description

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.

About

JSON Master

Features
Read full description

JSON Master is a JSON viewer and editor for the things you actually do all day: find the value, copy its path, copy the branch, and work out what a field really contains. Every document is shown two ways, as a tree and as coloured source, and both are the same file. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT - Every path is ready to paste, in whichever form you need it: dot, JSONPath, brackets, jq, Swift or JSON Pointer - The inspector explains what a value really is: Unix timestamps as dates, JWT tokens decoded, base64, ISO dates, string length, integers beyond 2^53, duplicate keys - Expand embedded JSON, the escaped string every webhook and log line contains, unwrapped in place - Syntax colour that holds even when the document does not parse, which is exactly when it helps - An untouched file is saved byte for byte as it arrived, and a broken one still opens with the line and column of the error ALSO INSIDE Format and minify, sort keys, remove empty values and duplicate keys, JSON Lines to array, JSONPath queries, document summary, structural compare, type generation for Swift, TypeScript and JSON Schema, JWT decoding, export to CSV. Designed like an amber monitor: warm near-black surfaces, phosphor text, monospaced throughout. Seven interface languages, switching without a restart. No account, no tracking, no analytics, no network access. Your documents never leave your device. Universal app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. LEGAL - Privacy Policy: https://vybgss.github.io/json-master-docs/privacy-policy.html - Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

rootshell4 screens
JSON Master3 screens

Verdict

The call

rootshell and JSON Master are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
rootshell versus JSON Master: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterrootshellJSON Master
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (45 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews94.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings45 — better—
Update frequencyFortnightly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size364 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperRootshell LLCVolodymyr Sichka

In-app purchases

None

rootshell

No in-app purchases

None

JSON Master

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is rootshell free?
rootshell is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is JSON Master free?
JSON Master is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do rootshell or JSON Master have ads?
Neither rootshell nor JSON Master shows ads.

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