Shelly vs Prompt 3
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Shelly
A powerful and user-friendly SSH client for mobile devices. It offers robust terminal emulation, gesture controls, and customizable keyboard shortcuts for efficient remote server management. Supports key-based authentication and iCloud sync.
- Hardware accelerated text rendering
- Robust terminal emulation
- Gesture control for navigation
- Customizable keyboard toolbar
- Key file authentication
- iCloud sync support
- Terminal color themes
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SSH client designed for usability and performance. RELIABLE AND FAST • Hardware accelerated text rendering. • Robust terminal emulation based on the PuTTY engine. • Works great with programs such as 'screen' and 'irssi'. CONTROL WITH GESTURES • Default gestures optimized for irssi. Just swipe to switch channels or to scroll up and down. • Fully customizable. Any keypress or action can be attached to any gesture. EASY CONNECTING • Save user credentials and configure a remote command such as ‘screen -rd’ to connect with one tap. • 3D touch support. Connect directly from the iOS home screen. CUSTOMIZABLE KEYBOARD • Easily bind custom actions to buttons on the keyboard toolbar. • Works with custom iOS keyboards such as SwiftKey. OPEN LINKS AND SELECT TEXT • Familiar iOS text selection experience. Long-press on text to show the selection controls. • Copy and paste text. • Select a URL to easily open it in the web browser. OTHER FEATURES • iCloud sync support. • Terminal color themes. Choose your favorite from the several themes included or make your own. • Key file authentication support. Import an existing private key, or create a new key and export the public key. • Host key verification and management. • Agent forwarding (OpenSSH servers only). • Keep connections alive while the app is in the background. • Connection history with optional realtime location data. • Plenty of other configuration options. Please note that some features require a paid upgrade. You can try all features for free for a limited time.
Prompt 3
A fully-native terminal emulator for Apple devices, offering robust connectivity for SSH, Mosh, and more. It features fast emulation, customizable clips, secure authentication, and cross-device syncing for a seamless experience.
- Native terminal emulator
- SSH, Mosh, Eternal Terminal, Telnet support
- Panic Sync for cross-device server syncing
- Superfast emulation with GPU acceleration
- Customizable clips for commands
- FaceID/TouchID authentication
- Jump Hosts and Agent Forwarding
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Prompt 3 is our #1 fully-native terminal emulator for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and now, Apple Vision Pro! Yes, with one purchase, you get four platforms. Supporting SSH, Mosh, Eternal Terminal, Telnet, and Local Shells (on Mac), you can stay connected even on the most unstable networks. And with Panic Sync, your servers sync everywhere. For terminals, this is the only app you need. NOW EVEN BETTER: • SSH, Telnet, and Local (for Mac) Rock-solid and reliable connectivity to your hosts. • Mosh and Eternal Terminal Keep your terminal open even when you get disconnected. Mosh is optimized for high-latency, low-throughput networks. Eternal Terminal is great for when you need to keep your full terminal history on a flaky connection. • Lower Price Everything is so expensive right now. So we made Prompt cheaper. Take that, capitalism. • Superfast Emulation We retooled the text engine in Prompt 3 to be up to 10x faster, including GPU acceleration, and with improved terminal emulation, you can run nvim inside tmux without breaking a sweat. • Clips Put your most-used commands and text bits into clips and access them with a single tap via Prompt’s keyboard bar. Clips can be stored globally or per-server. • Secure Enclave Authenticate with FaceID and TouchID. The keys will stay secure on your device. • Panic Sync Sync your favorite servers, passwords, private keys, and clips, between Prompt on all of your devices. • Customizable Make Prompt perfect with new themes, fonts, and a very configurable iOS keyboard. • Jump Hosts and Agent Forwarding Access corporate servers, even at the beach. • Mouse Support Use your mouse to interact with TUI-based apps that run through the terminal. AND YES, A DARK ICON. What more can we say? TAKE CONTROL FROM ANYWHERE, INCLUDING YOUR MAC AND APPLE VISION PRO. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY PROMPT 3. © Panic EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
Shelly and Prompt 3 both sit at 4.4 stars, but that hides the real split: 76% of Shelly's written reviews are positive against 22% of Prompt 3's. Shelly also leads on monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). Prompt 3's advantage is chart position (#26 vs #182). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
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. Shelly sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Prompt 3 sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for Shelly against 4.3 for Prompt 3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 273 and 349 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of Shelly's written reviews are positive against 22% of Prompt 3's.
Shelly ships an update every 2 months, Prompt 3 every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Shelly | Prompt 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (273 ratings) — better | 4.3 (349 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.2% of reviews — better | 22.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 273 | 349 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #182 | #26 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 43 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Touch Foo | Panic, Inc. |
Customer experience
Shelly
Prompt 3
User reviews
Shelly
From 273 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Lightweight and fast
- 👍 Customizable keyboard and gestures
- 🔒 Supports SSH key authentication
- 💡 Useful shortcuts and toolbar
- 👍 Reliable background connections
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional connection drops when switching apps
- 🐛 Toolbar issues with hardware keyboard
- 🐛 Garbled display with some terminal programs
- 🐛 Lack of support for newer SSH key formats
- 🐛 Inconsistent behavior with password managers
Prompt 3
From 349 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast and powerful
- 🔒 Secure with Secure Enclave support
- 👍 Great admin tool
- 👍 Continues to improve over time
- 👍 Fantastic terminal emulator on iPad
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes frequently
- 🐛 Buggy and unreliable
- 🚫 Subscription required for full functionality
- 💰 Extremely expensive, especially for existing users
- 🤔 Lacks features compared to competitors
Bugs and requests
Shelly
Reported bugs
4 issues- Saved profiles get overwritten unexpectedly
- Toolbar persists even with auto-hide enabled
- Cursor movement issues with hardware keyboard
- Inability to copy/paste with Magic Keyboard
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for port forwarding
- Implement Mosh protocol support
- Allow customization of default font
- Provide option for multiple app instances
- Add ability to remap hardware keyboard keys
Prompt 3
Reported bugs
5 issues- Server list randomly disappears with Panic Sync
- Crashes when connected to external monitor
- Black screen issues with custom font configurations
- Sync issues causing data loss
- Vertical display sync issues
Requested features
8 requests- Shortcuts support on macOS
- Ability to click and select within commands
- Local shell option
- Run clips on server connection
- Export/backup clips
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- Alt/Meta key support for Emacs
- iCloud sync option
- Sign in with Apple for Panic Sync
In-app purchases
Shelly
- Upgrade To Pro$3.99
Prompt 3
- Prompt 3 iOS + Mac (Annual)7 Days trial$9.991 Year
- Prompt 3 One Time$49.99









