Comparison

tunlr vs PocketADM

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

Head to head
About

tunlr

This app provides a secure SSH terminal emulator for mobile devices. It offers advanced authentication methods, including biometric-protected keys, and on-device voice dictation for terminal commands. Designed for developers and sysadmins, it ensures privacy with no accounts or data tracking.

Highlights
  • Full PTY terminal emulation
  • Biometric-protected SSH keys
  • On-device voice dictation
  • Customizable keyboard toolbar
  • Save server profiles
  • 14 color themes
Features
Read full description

SSH terminal in your pocket. Full xterm-256color emulation, biometric-protected keys, and on-device voice dictation. No accounts, no tracking β€” everything stays on your device. tunlr is built for developers, sysadmins, and DevOps engineers who need real terminal access on iPhone and iPad. β€” TERMINAL β€” Full PTY terminal emulation powered by SwiftTerm. xterm-256color support. Configurable scrollback buffer up to 50,000 lines. Optional Metal GPU-accelerated rendering. Works in portrait and landscape on both iPhone and iPad. β€” AUTHENTICATION β€” Three ways to authenticate, all protected by Face ID or Touch ID: Secure Enclave keys β€” generate a P-256 ECDSA key that never leaves your device's Secure Enclave. The private key is inaccessible even to the app itself. Imported keys β€” bring your own Ed25519, ECDSA, or RSA keys. Stored in the iOS Keychain with biometric protection. Passwords β€” stored in the Keychain, never in plain text. β€” HOST VERIFICATION β€” Trust-on-first-use (TOFU) host key verification. tunlr saves the server fingerprint on first connection and warns you if it ever changes. Import fingerprints by scanning a QR code to skip the initial trust step. β€” VOICE INPUT β€” Dictate terminal commands with on-device speech recognition powered by WhisperKit. All audio processing happens on your device β€” nothing is sent to any server. β€” KEYBOARD TOOLBAR β€” Customizable keyboard toolbar with sticky modifier keys. Shortcut packs for Shell, Tmux, Vim, and Claude Code workflows. Save your own favorites. β€” CONNECTIONS β€” Save server profiles with hostname, port, username, and authentication method. Connect with a single tap. Auto-reconnect restores your session when you return to the app, with configurable keepalive intervals. β€” APPEARANCE β€” 14 color themes: Default Dark, Solarized Dark, Solarized Light, Dracula, Nord, Monokai, One Dark, GitHub Light, Gruvbox Light, Catppuccin Mocha, Tokyo Night, RosΓ© Pine, Synthwave, and Kanagawa. Four monospace fonts and adjustable font size. β€” PRIVACY β€” No accounts. No analytics. No tracking. No data collection. Everything runs on your device. SSH connections go directly to your servers β€” tunlr never contacts any third-party service.

About

PocketADM

Manage your self-hosted Linux servers directly from your phone. Monitor live dashboards, access a full terminal, deploy apps with a one-tap store, and receive smart updates and health checks. An optional AI agent can even run commands and fix issues.

Highlights
  • Live server dashboard
  • Full terminal with copy/paste
  • AI agent for command execution
  • One-tap app deployment
  • Smart updates and health checks
  • Open source
Features
Read full description

PocketADM is a mobile-first command center for the servers you host yourself. Connect to your own Linux box and run the whole thing from your phone. β€’ Live dashboard: CPU, memory, disk, uptime and network at a glance, with every container grouped and one tap from its logs. β€’ A real terminal: a full terminal with a mobile key bar and copy & paste. Open a shell as your own host user, the app, or exec into any container. β€’ Assistant: an optional AI agent that runs commands, reads and edits files and fixes things directly on your server. It streams live, asks before anything destructive, and you bring your own API key (or run a local model). β€’ One-tap app store: deploy popular self-hosted apps as clean Docker/compose projects with friendly config forms. β€’ Smart updates & health: spot outdated images, roll back safely, and get plain language security and health checks. PocketADM is open source (MIT). There is no account with us and no tracking. The app talks only to the servers you add, over a direct connection. You run the server software yourself with a single install command from pocketadm.com. Just looking? Add the demo server demo.pocketadm.com with username and password 'demo' to explore a read-only sandbox.

Screenshots

tunlr4 screens
PocketADM4 screens

Verdict

The call

tunlr and PocketADM are too close to call on the numbers: across 8 compared parameters β€” price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads among them β€” neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS

CostPrice Β· In-app purchases Β· Ads Β· Monetization

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

UpkeepUpdate frequency

tunlr ships an update every 5 weeks, PocketADM every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
tunlr versus PocketADM: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametertunlrPocketADM
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksEvery 3 weeks β€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details β€” not scored
Size13 MB11 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperAnastasiia TrofimovaMaximilian Elias Paasch

Customer experience

tunlr

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

PocketADM

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

tunlr

No in-app purchases

None

PocketADM

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is tunlr free?
tunlr is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is PocketADM free?
PocketADM is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do tunlr or PocketADM have ads?
Neither tunlr nor PocketADM shows ads.
Which is updated more often, tunlr or PocketADM?
tunlr ships an update every 5 weeks, and PocketADM every 3 weeks. Most recently, tunlr was updated on October 8, 2026 and PocketADM on October 10, 2026.

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