The honest comparison

A Termius alternative
that never holds your keys.

Termius is a polished SSH client — but your vault is tied to their account and their servers, and the features are spread across tiers. NetShell starts free, costs less when you need everything, and answers the question differently: every feature in one Pro plan, and your private keys never leave your own devices.

Switch to NetShell See the full table
0Private keys on our servers
0Accounts you have to create
1Pro plan — every feature, no tier above it

Both clients cost about the same. The difference is custody: who holds the keys to your servers, and how many plans it takes to get the whole app.

Feature by feature

The whole picture,
nothing hidden.

  NetShell Termius Pro
Price Free for one server · Pro $69.99 / year, every feature ~$120 / year (Pro)
On-device key generation Yes — ed25519 & RSA Paid tier
Where your keys live Your hardware-backed Keychain Vendor's encrypted vault
Key & password sync E2E via iCloud Keychain (no vendor server) Through a vendor account
Account required None Yes
Fail-closed host verification Yes Not surfaced
Destructive-command guard Yes No
Face ID app lock + auto-relock Yes Varies
On-device AI assistant Apple Intelligence + bring-your-own Cloud add-on
Telemetry Off by default On
Platforms iPhone, iPad & Mac Desktop, mobile (account-tied)

Reflects publicly documented Termius Pro features as of 2026. Termius is a trademark of its owner; NetShell is independent and not affiliated.

Why it matters

What those rows
mean for you.

Your keys are never hostage

Your private keys live in your device's hardware-backed Keychain and sync through iCloud Keychain — not a vendor vault. There's no account to lose access to, and nothing to "migrate out of" if you leave.

No account, nothing phoning home

No sign-up, no profile, no telemetry by default. The app doesn't report how you run your servers, and there's no cloud account that can be breached, locked, or mined.

Security they don't even ship

Fail-closed host verification stops a password reaching an unknown host, and a destructive-command guard catches rm -rf, DROP TABLE and force-pushes before they land — both included, both on by default.

Moving over

Switching takes
about two minutes.

1

Bring your keys

Import your existing OpenSSH keys, or generate fresh ed25519 keys on-device. See SSH keys.

2

Add your hosts

Re-add servers in seconds, or let the network scanner find them. See Add a connection.

3

Cancel the old one

Your keys already sync end-to-end through your own iCloud Keychain, so nothing is left behind in a vendor vault and there is no account to close.

The obvious questions

"Okay, so why switch? "

What does it cost?

Start free with one SSH server. NetShell Pro is $6.99 / month or $69.99 / year and covers iPhone, iPad & Mac. Every feature is in that one Pro plan — the terminal for every server, key vault, sync, Docker, the AI assistant. There is no tier above it and nothing held back to sell you later.

If I'm paying either way, why move?

Because you are paying for different things. A vendor vault means your keys live on someone else's infrastructure, behind an account that can be breached or locked. NetShell has no account and no server in the path — private keys sit in your device's Keychain and sync only through Apple's end-to-end encrypted iCloud Keychain. We could not read them if we wanted to.

Will my keys be safe?

Safer, arguably — they sit in the iOS hardware-backed Keychain behind Face ID and sync only through Apple's end-to-end encrypted iCloud Keychain. Read the encryption overview.

Your keys, your devices.
Nobody else's vault.

iPhone, iPad & Mac · iOS 17+ · Free to start · Pro $69.99 / year · No account · No telemetry by default.

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