Comparison

rootshell vs Kuberfy

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

Kuberfy

Control your self-hosted PaaS server remotely. Monitor applications, check system health, and manage your account directly from your mobile device. It offers a lightweight, self-hosted alternative to popular cloud platforms.

Highlights
  • Remote server management
  • App and project monitoring
  • System health checks
  • Resource usage monitoring
  • Live traffic inspection
  • Account management
Features
Read full description

Manage your self-hosted Kuberfy server from anywhere. Monitor deployed apps and projects, check system health and resource usage, inspect live traffic, and manage your account — all from your phone. Kuberfy is the lightest self-hosted alternative to Heroku, Vercel, and Netlify, running on your own infrastructure with Docker Swarm. This app connects directly to the Kuberfy server you control; no data passes through any third-party service.

Screenshots

rootshell4 screens
Kuberfy4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: rootshell at 53 against Kuberfy's 1. Kuberfy's advantage is iOS requirement (16.4 vs 18.0). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for rootshell against 5.0 for Kuberfy. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: rootshell has 53 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
rootshell versus Kuberfy: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterrootshellKuberfy
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (53 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews91.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings53 — better1
Update frequencyFortnightly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size376 MB42 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperRootshell LLCFasteryDev, LLC

Customer experience

rootshell

All ratings50 ratings
Positive96.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative4.0%
Written reviews23 reviews
Positive91.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative8.7%

Kuberfy

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

rootshell

No in-app purchases

None

Kuberfy

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is rootshell free?
rootshell is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Kuberfy free?
Kuberfy is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, rootshell or Kuberfy?
Kuberfy is rated higher. rootshell averages 4.9 out of 5 from 53 ratings, while Kuberfy averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do rootshell or Kuberfy have ads?
Neither rootshell nor Kuberfy shows ads.

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