Comparison

Terminal W vs Tmux Bridge

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

Head to head
About

Terminal W

Features
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Terminal W is a native SSH client for iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Mac. Connect to remote servers, keep several shells open, and return to your sessions as you move around the app. CONNECTIONS AND SECURITY • Save hosts, organize them into groups, and connect with a tap. • Authenticate with passwords, imported Ed25519 or ECDSA keys, or device-generated P-256 keys. • Import supported passphrase-protected private keys without saving the passphrase. • Verify SSH host keys with stable SHA-256 fingerprints. • Reach servers through SSH jump hosts and local port forwards. • Keep passwords and private keys in the device Keychain, with Secure Enclave support for generated keys on supported hardware. • Protect access with Face ID, Touch ID, or your device passcode. YOUR TERMINAL • Open multiple sessions, including several shells on the same server. • Use a terminal with UTF-8, ANSI colors, copy and paste, scrollback, and search. • Customize the special key bar with Esc, Tab, Ctrl, Alt, arrows, Home, End, and Page Up or Down. • Use hardware keyboard shortcuts for sessions, search, text size, and reconnecting. • Save command snippets with {{variable}} placeholders and reuse commands from history. • Upload photos and files over SFTP and insert their remote paths at the prompt. • Choose a terminal theme or follow your device's Light and Dark appearance. MADE FOR IPHONE AND IPAD • See connected sessions in a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and, on supported iPhones, the Dynamic Island. • Open separate terminals in multiple iPad windows. • Return to an open session from Hosts, Sessions, or a Live Activity. • Enable Keep Sessions Alive when you want connections to continue in the background. This optional setting is off by default. ICLOUD AND PRIVACY Saved hosts, host groups, snippets, and trusted host-key fingerprints sync through your private iCloud database. Passwords and private keys remain in the Keychain on each device, so set up credentials separately on every device. Terminal W uses Apple SwiftNIO SSH and CryptoKit. It has no analytics or tracking, requires no app account or subscription, and has no developer-operated credential vault. All shell commands run on your remote server. Requires iOS or iPadOS 26 or later. The iPad app also runs directly on Macs with macOS 26 or later and an Apple M1 chip or later.

About

Tmux Bridge

Features
Read full description

Tmux Bridge is a phone-native window into the tmux sessions running on your own Mac. Sign in with an email code, pair your laptop with a six-character code, and your iPhone becomes a real terminal — not a web shell, not a relay, not a hosted IDE. Your sessions never leave your tailnet. tmuxbridge talks directly to a small daemon running on your laptop over Tailscale, terminated with a real Let's Encrypt certificate. There is no middleman tmux server and no cloud terminal to compromise. FEATURES - Real xterm.js terminal embedded in the app - Multiple Macs, fan-out from one phone - Email-OTP sign-in with self-issued, short-lived tokens - Six-character pair codes; revoke a machine anytime from Settings - Mobile keyboard accessory: Esc, Tab, arrows, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-B - Auto-reconnecting WebSocket; survives bad cell signal REQUIREMENTS - A Mac you can install the tmux-bridge daemon on (one-line installer) - Tailscale installed and signed in on the phone AND the Mac - tmux installed on the Mac tmuxbridge is open source under the MIT license. The full source for the iOS app, the Mac daemon, and the backend is available on GitHub.

Screenshots

Terminal W4 screens
Tmux Bridge3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Tmux Bridge at 15.1 against Terminal W's 26.0. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

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

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

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

Scorecard1 real difference Ā· 5 level
Terminal W versus Tmux Bridge: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTerminal WTmux Bridge
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 4 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size9 MB28 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperWeiming ChenSaad Omar Osman

In-app purchases

None

Terminal W

No in-app purchases

None

Tmux Bridge

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Terminal W free?
Terminal W is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Tmux Bridge free?
Tmux Bridge is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Terminal W or Tmux Bridge have ads?
Neither Terminal W nor Tmux Bridge shows ads.

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