Bonsai³ vs Clayshell
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bonsai³
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Turn your everyday GitHub activity into a bonsai. Bonsai³ turns your GitHub activity into a small voxel tree. Connect your account and see your recent contribution history take shape in its branches and foliage. When new contributions sync, gentle rain waters your bonsai and fresh growth appears. Rotate and zoom your tree, or simply enjoy it beneath a sky that changes from morning to night. • Choose from Maple, Pine, Cherry, and Azalea, with eight pot styles. • Each bonsai reflects 90 days of activity. Revisit past bonsai to see how your activity has changed over time. • Turn your bonsai into a postcard and share it as an image. • Keep your tree on the Home Screen with widgets for iPhone and iPad. Start with a sample garden—no sign-in needed. Your bonsai and contribution history are handled on your device. No ads or tracking. Bonsai³ never receives your GitHub password. Bonsai³ is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GitHub.
Clayshell
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Clayshell is an SSH server manager for people who run their own servers. Add a server once, then do the daily work without leaving the app. TERMINAL A real terminal with full colour, in tabs. Your own shell, as many sessions as you need. FILES Browse the server over SFTP. Upload, download, rename, delete, make files and folders, and preview text files. EDITOR WITH A BACKUP Open a file on the server, edit it and save. Before every save the previous version is kept next to it as a .bak file, and one tap puts it back. If the file changed on the server while you were editing, Clayshell tells you instead of overwriting it. MONITOR CPU, memory, disk, load, uptime and the busiest processes, live, for Linux servers. PM2 See your PM2 processes, start, stop and restart them, and follow their logs. ALERTS Be told when a disk fills up, when CPU or memory stays high, when a PM2 process goes down, or when a server cannot be reached. On the Mac, Clayshell can watch your servers from the menu bar. A small script can also be installed on the server itself, so alerts reach Telegram, ntfy or a webhook even when your devices are asleep. MORE SSH Jump hosts. Import from your SSH config. Port forwarding. Ed25519, ECDSA and RSA keys, or a password. YOUR DATA STAYS WITH YOU • No account, no analytics, no tracking. Nothing is sent to us. • Passwords and keys are kept in the Keychain on your device. • Clayshell only talks to the servers you add. • It asks before trusting a new server, and stops if a server's key changes. • An optional lock with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. Clayshell has a day and a night look, and works on Mac and iPhone. Monitoring needs a Linux server. The PM2 screen needs PM2 on the server. Server alerts need curl and cron on the server. An RSA key protected by a passphrase is not supported yet.
Screenshots
Verdict
Bonsai³ and Clayshell 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | Bonsai³ | Clayshell |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Weekly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sakino Tomiura | Arvind Kumar |
In-app purchases
Bonsai³
No in-app purchases
Clayshell
No in-app purchases









