8Terminal vs Termini Desk SSH Client

8Terminal is an SSH client for iPhone and iPad that needs no account. Your hosts, keys and passwords live in an encrypted vault on your device — there is nothing to sign up for and no server of ours in between. TERMINAL • Native SSH, built in — not a wrapper around another client • GPU-accelerated terminal with a key row for Esc, Ctrl, Alt, Tab, arrows, Shift-Tab, Home, End, Page Up/Down and F1–F12 • Hardware keyboard on iPad: Esc, Tab, Ctrl keys, Cmd+T, Cmd+W and Cmd+1–9 • Several sessions at once, with a Live Activity that shows when a coding agent is waiting — and Return, Ctrl-C and Reconnect buttons • Reconnects when you come back, and reattaches your tmux or zellij session • Paste a screenshot straight into the terminal; its location data is removed first • Find in the terminal, and open https links after you confirm • Send a saved password into a prompt with Face ID — it never touches the clipboard HOSTS AND KEYS • Password, key and two-factor keyboard-interactive sign-in; Ed25519, ECDSA and RSA keys in OpenSSH and PuTTY formats • Generate a key on the phone and install it on a host in one step • OpenSSH certificates from your CA • A key kept in the Secure Enclave, used with Face ID for every sign-in • Agent forwarding that asks you before every signature • Chains of up to four jump hosts, and environment variables per host • Unknown host keys ask first; a changed host key blocks the connection • Post-quantum key exchange (mlkem768x25519-sha256) with servers that offer it SFTP AND TUNNELS • Browse, upload and download over the connection you already opened • Folders, permissions, Quick Look and Share, keep both or replace • An interrupted transfer resumes where it stopped • Local, remote and dynamic (SOCKS5) port forwarding WIDGETS AND SHORTCUTS • A Home Screen widget with your recent hosts • Shortcuts to connect to a host, run a snippet (after you review it) or start a tunnel ENCRYPTED VAULT, ON YOUR TERMS • Argon2id and XChaCha20-Poly1305; unlock with Face ID or your master password • Several vaults if you keep work and home apart • Back up to your own iCloud Drive or Google Drive, or export one file — free • Import hosts from MobaXterm, PuTTY, Tabby and your OpenSSH config; export and import readable JSON without secrets AI ASSISTANT, YOUR KEY • Bring your own OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter or compatible key; it stays on this device • By default you choose what it reads, and a command it suggests runs only after you approve it, exactly once • Optional Auto mode, off until you turn it on: give it a goal and it runs read-only checks on your Linux server by itself, without touching your terminal, and asks before anything that changes the server • In Auto mode what those checks print is sent to your AI provider. Your passwords, keys and vault are never sent, and you agree before the first run • Stop ends a run at once 8TERMINAL PRO — $5.99 ONCE • End-to-end encrypted vault sync between your iPhone, iPad and Mac, through your own cloud • Link a new device with a verification code • One purchase covers every device on your Apple Account and your Family Sharing group. No subscription. Everything else in 8Terminal is free, on every device, with no time limit. PRIVACY No account, no tracking, no analytics. Crash reports stay off until you turn them on, and never contain hostnames, usernames, terminal output or anything from your vault. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Connect over SSH, SFTP, Telnet and RDP from one client. Deck is the AI agent in the same window: it runs on real hosts after you approve, and stops on risky steps. Office comes last — Word, Excel or PDF you can open, not a chat log. SSH Key, password, keyboard-interactive, SSH-Agent, GSSAPI. Jump hosts, shared connections, idle disconnect. Type yourself, or let Deck run on one host or a group after you confirm. SFTP Two panes: local left, remote right. List, rename, permissions, new, delete, drag, copy across sessions, edit in place. Point at a folder and move configs or logs in bulk. Telnet Switches and older gear. Prompt, pager and disable-paging for Cisco, Huawei, H3C. Deck can batch Telnet; you still approve. NVT newlines when needed. RDP Windows desktop: scale, full screen, certificate trust, optional Azure AD, clipboard with files, shared folders. Colour depth, keyboard, console session per host. A remote desk, not only a jump box. AI agent Not another chat box. Actions land on the network; files land on disk. Reads what you have, writes real formats, runs only what you approve. Long docs or repos can split across read-only explore sub-agents. Skills and MCP teach playbooks; scheduled tasks hang repeating work on a clock. Production can be stricter than lab. Dangerous steps wait. State goal, inputs, output and constraints once. Example: read-only inspection on this switch group, errors in a table, mark bad ports before any write. No command language to learn. Terminal client Tabs, themes, in-session search, command suggestions. Tabs on one machine share underlying SSH. Idle timeout per host. Broadcast an ACL. Fill snippet variables before send. Recordings replay the incident timeline. OpenSSH keys. Snippets with {variables}; Ctrl+Shift+P. SSH, Telnet and local sessions record as asciicast. Broadcast keystrokes to patch many boxes. Import scans session names only — no foreign passwords. ProxyJump, PuTTY SSH, Xshell, Termius CSV. Re-attach keys in Termini; encrypted sync carries the roster. Office Say the job, get a file — after you are on the machine. Word keeps headings and tables; Excel uses real column names and frozen headers; PDF from scans or Markdown; PPT with title levels and charts. Search the web, read screenshots, send local-path attachments. Skills remember house style; MCP calls internal APIs after approval. One workspace Group hosts as the company is grouped. Import ~/.ssh/config, PuTTY, Xshell, Termius CSV — none bring passwords. Devices, keys, skills, MCP and snippets can sync encrypted. Who it is for People in SSH who still owe slides on Friday. Admin, ops, pre-sales, engineering, network. OpenSSH or Xshell? Import. Against chat-only: a file on disk. Against terminal-only: an agent in the same window. Finish a PPT, RDP to present, SFTP the pack back. Backup before production, preview a patch, see the attachment path — those three stop for you by default. Privacy: https://terminiapp.com/en/privacy Terms: https://terminiapp.com/en/terms Docs: https://terminiapp.com/en/docs