Tessera vs DocLens

Tessera is a fast, keyboard-first SSH, Mosh, and tmux terminal for iPhone and iPad. It connects directly to servers you own or control — no middleman, no account, no tracking. MOVE BETWEEN YOUR DEVICES • Hand off a live session: start on iPad, pick it up on iPhone, then double-tap to take back control. The session keeps running either way. • Your focused session appears in the App Switcher and Dock on your other devices. • Nearby Setup copies your hosts, keys, and preferences to a new device directly over the local network — you choose exactly what to copy, both devices confirm a matching code, and each grant needs Face ID. • Or don't sync at all: choose whether sessions follow you or stay on each device. STAY CONNECTED • First-class tmux integration: auto-attach on connect, so a dropped connection never loses your work. • Native tmux windows as tabs, with real panes. • Mosh keeps your session alive across Wi-Fi ↔ cellular roaming and sleep/wake — pick up exactly where you left off. • Session restore brings your saved hosts and layout back after relaunch. BUILT FOR TOUCH AND KEYBOARD • First-class hardware-keyboard support: shortcuts, a key legend (⌘ hold), and careful handling of modifier keys for real terminal work. • A configurable swipe pad puts arrows, Esc, Ctrl and your own macros in the thumb zone. • Mouse and trackpad support, including scrolling that works. • Find-in-terminal, themes, and adjustable fonts and appearance. • Optional on-device dictation straight into the terminal. FILES, PORTS, AND JUMP HOSTS • A remote file panel that tracks your shell's current directory, over SSH and mosh alike — with native iOS sharing to move files and images in and out. • Local port forwarding with a live tunnels overview. • Jump hosts for servers you can only reach through a bastion. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT • Tessera has no servers, no analytics, and collects no data. Connections go directly from your iOS devices to your machines. SECURITY YOU EXPECT • Keys are generated and stored in the iOS Keychain; Secure Enclave–backed keys never leave your device and can require Face ID to use. • Host-key verification with a persistent known-hosts store. • App lock with Face ID / passcode on launch, background return, and idle timeout. OPEN SOURCE • Tessera is free software (GPL-3.0). The full source code is available at github.com/bambouville/tessera. Tessera requires servers you provide — it is a client, not a hosting service. Mosh and tmux features require mosh/tmux installed on the server.

DocLens is a fully offline frame-select OCR tool: draw a box, extract exactly the text you circled, and translate it on your device. The liability clause in a contract, the date on a court ruling, one verbatim line from an interview: you choose the block, it reads only that. Headers, footers, ads and noise are never touched. Key features: 1. Frame-select OCR: shoot or pick a photo, drag a box, and only the text inside is recognized. Low-confidence lines are dashed-underlined for line-by-line proofreading before translation. 2. Accurate recognition: selectable recognition languages with automatic per-line detection for mixed Chinese and English; handwriting and rotated text supported; Enhance and Retry rescues poor scans. 3. On-device translation: results are translated paragraph by paragraph for fluent output. Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German and Spanish are supported, and language packs can be downloaded in advance. 4. QR and barcode scanning: frame a code to open URLs in an in-app browser, dial numbers, compose emails, open locations, or copy Wi-Fi passwords and contact fields. 5. Fully offline: recognition, translation and barcode scanning all run on your device. No account, no analytics, no cloud upload, and no network access from shutter to text. 6. Minimal permissions: DocLens never asks for full photo library access, only permission to save your exports. Data stays in the local sandbox and database. 7. Torch and Enhance Retry: turn on the light for close-up documents, and re-run recognition with boosted contrast when a scan comes out poorly. Membership: New users get a free 7-day trial, extendable once by another 7 days from the membership page. After the trial, you can still scan free once per day. VIP is a one-time purchase: no subscription, no ads, no tracking. Great for contract review, hearing and meeting notes, interview transcription, research excerpts, receipt and form data extraction, and translating foreign signs. Your files go nowhere. That is what makes DocLens different: it does not make decisions for you. It hands judgment back to you, and keeps privacy structural with on-device computing.