JSON Pilot vs ShellDiver
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
JSON Pilot
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A native JSON viewer and editor for iPhone and iPad, with an on-device AI assistant that explains your data without sending a byte to the cloud. JSON Pilot opens any JSON โ from Files, the share sheet, AirDrop, your clipboard, or an HTTP request you fire from inside the app โ and gives you three ways to read it: a syntax-highlighted Tree, a tap-to-edit Fields drilldown, and a Text view with line numbers. Edit at any level, prettify or minify, validate with a precise line:col error, and save the edits back to the original file. Multi-megabyte files open, search and edit smoothly. โ FREE FOREVER โ The whole viewer and editor is free with no account, no nags, no cloud sync. View, edit, validate, format, minify, search, Save, Save to Files, Share, Copy. We never gate the basics. โ ON-DEVICE AI ASSISTANT โ Ask "What is this JSON?", "Find issues" or "Extract all emails" and JSON Pilot answers locally, in your language, using Apple Foundation Models. Your JSON, your prompts and the model's replies never leave your device. No server, no API key, no cloud fallback. (The AI assistant requires Apple Intelligence: iPhone 15 Pro or later, or an iPad with M1 or A17 Pro or later, in a language Apple Intelligence supports. On other devices the assistant is turned off automatically; everything else in the app still works.) โ POWER TOOLS (PRO) โ โข JSON Diff โ compare two payloads by structure. Reformatting is never a change, and array items are lined up. Summary view groups Changed / Added / Removed; Unified view shows a GitHub-style line diff. โข JSONPath queries โ $, ., [i], [*], .. and more. Matches highlight right on the Tree. โข Format conversion โ export to YAML, CSV or XML. โข HTTP request tool โ send GET / POST / PUT / PATCH / DELETE with custom headers and a JSON body, then open the response in the same workspace. โข Auto-fix โ repair broken JSON: trailing commas, single quotes, unquoted keys, comments, smart quotes. โข Themes โ accent color and three syntax palettes. โ PRIVACY YOU CAN VERIFY โ Zero analytics SDKs. Zero telemetry. Zero crash reporters. The only network traffic the app initiates is StoreKit (your purchases) and HTTP requests you send yourself โ and their responses are never cached on disk. Recents are stored locally, CloudKit is explicitly disabled, and Clear Recents erases your history together with every local copy of your documents. JSON Pilot does not request Camera, Photos, Contacts, Microphone, Location or any other iOS permission. โ UPGRADE TO PRO โ Two ways to unlock the same Pro features: โข Monthly subscription โ billed monthly, cancel anytime. โข Lifetime โ one-time purchase, keep Pro forever. Both options unlock the same features. See the App Store listing for current pricing in your region. Manage or cancel anytime in Settings โ Apple Account โ Subscriptions. โ REQUIREMENTS โ iPhone or iPad with iOS or iPadOS 26.4 or later. AI features require Apple Intelligence. Available in English, Deutsch, Espaรฑol, Franรงais, Italiano, Portuguรชs (Brasil), ะ ัััะบะธะน, ๆฅๆฌ่ช, ํ๊ตญ์ด and ็ฎไฝไธญๆ. โ SUPPORT โ Questions, bugs, ideas? Use the App Support link on this page โ we read everything. โ TERMS โ Terms of Use: https://shilovskii.dev/apps/json-pilot/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://shilovskii.dev/apps/json-pilot/privacy.html
ShellDiver
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With software, free is usually a question rather than an answer. Here it is arithmetic: no server of ours, no accounts, no analytics โ nothing for a subscription to pay for. Sync, startup commands, port forwarding: all of it is in the app. WHERE YOUR KEYS LIVE In your device's keychain. ShellDiver has no account and no sign-in โ there is simply nowhere on our side for anything of yours to sit. An Ed25519 key either travels with you through iCloud Keychain, end-to-end encrypted, or stays on this device behind Face ID. A Secure Enclave key is created inside the security chip. It cannot be read out โ not even by ShellDiver โ never leaves the device, and will ask for Face ID on every sign-in if you want it to. THE VAULT Instead of iCloud you can take syncing into your own hands: an encrypted file in a place you choose. A USB stick, a cloud folder, or your own WebDAV server, so Nextcloud, ownCloud, a Synology, an Apache with mod_dav. It works across different Apple IDs and carries the secrets with it: saved server passwords and private keys. Only your devices encrypt and decrypt. Whoever runs the storage location sees nothing but unreadable files. You add a second device with a QR code, without typing your passphrase there. THE TERMINAL It does not hang up because you looked somewhere else for a minute: the connection belongs to the session, not to the screen. The running build and the half-typed line are still there when you come back. Up to 20 sessions as tabs, terminals and files mixed. Real xterm emulation: colour, UTF-8, resizing that works โ htop, vim and colourful logs look the way you expect. Plus search through the scrollback, your choice of monospaced font including Nerd Fonts, and five colour schemes. On iPhone there is a row above the keyboard with esc, ctrl, tab, arrows and a paste key, because a phone has no โV. When the link drops, ShellDiver notices through keepalives and rebuilds it by itself. This is SSH, not Mosh: the new shell starts fresh. SIGNING IN WITHOUT GUESSING ShellDiver asks the server which methods it offers and works through whatever it holds credentials for. That covers publickey followed by keyboard-interactive โ 2FA after the key โ and equally a server that only offers keyboard-interactive while the host is saved as "password". One-time codes are never pre-filled and never stored. You confirm a host key once, by its fingerprint. Every connection after that checks it, and a key that has changed is refused rather than waved through. THROUGH A JUMP HOST When a server is only open on the inside, you give it a jump host โ OpenSSH's ProxyJump. The jump host then forwards nothing but encrypted bytes and cannot read along; both sign-ins are signed on this device. So your key does not have to sit on the machine in between, and a Secure Enclave key works here too. FILES AND TUNNELS The SFTP browser downloads and uploads, whole folders included, renames, and deletes recursively. Local port forwarding brings a database or an admin interface onto this device. It listens on 127.0.0.1 only and cannot be reached from outside; each rule holds its own connection, so a tunnel does not fall with a terminal. WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE Your ~/.ssh/config is imported, with each IdentityFile matched against the keys you have and any ProxyJump resolved; so is known_hosts, hashed entries as far as they can be matched. Keys come in as Ed25519, RSA or ECDSA โ from the OpenSSH container, from PuTTY's .ppk (v2 and v3), and from the PEM family. A passphrase on the file is used once during import and not kept. Snippets are also the buttons above the keyboard โ global or bound to one host, with a confirmation step if you want one. One per host runs by itself as soon as the shell is open. The backup is a JSON file you can read โ secrets sit inside an encrypted block under a passphrase you choose. Without it nobody gets at them, us included.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: ShellDiver at none against JSON Pilot's 2. ShellDiver also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months) and iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.4). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. JSON Pilot sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. ShellDiver asks for nothing beyond the download.
JSON Pilot ships an update every 2 months, ShellDiver weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | JSON Pilot | ShellDiver |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No โ better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac โ better |
| Requires iOS | 26.4 | 18.0 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Georgii Shilovskii | Mathias Oysmueller |
In-app purchases
JSON Pilot
- Pro Monthly$1.991 Month
- Pro โ Lifetime Unlock$6.99
ShellDiver
No in-app purchases









