Bast vs electerm

Bast is a command-line tool and terminal interface for managing SSH hosts and connecting to servers. It uses the system OpenSSH client and relies on the existing SSH configuration as its source of truth. Users can search, sort, group, tag, color, favorite, and hide hosts, then connect through SSH or use port forwarding. A dual-pane Files tab supports local and remote file browsing and transfers through OpenSSH SFTP. The key manager can generate, import, export, and install SSH keys. Bast documents host synchronization with GCP, AWS, Azure, box.ascii.dev, Upstash Box, Vercel Sandbox, and Hetzner Cloud. Its Vault encrypts managed hosts and keys on the client using a passphrase-derived key and XChaCha20-Poly1305; the server stores ciphertext. Users can self-host the web app and keep Vault data on their own infrastructure. Bast is free, with plans for macOS, Linux, and Windows 11. Windows requires OpenSSH Client commands on PATH. Vercel Sandbox sessions are capped at five hours.

electerm combines a terminal emulator, graphical SFTP file manager, and remote connection tools in free, open-source software under the MIT License. It supports SSH, SFTP, FTP, Telnet, serial, RDP, VNC, and Spice sessions, with both public-key and password authentication. Connection options include proxies, SSH tunneling, agent forwarding, port forwarding, X11 forwarding, and connection hopping. The SFTP manager lets users open remote files for editing. Its AI assistant supports OpenAI Chat Completions, OpenAI Responses, and Anthropic Messages formats for generating commands and scripts, creating bookmarks, and explaining things. Bookmarks, themes, and quick commands can sync through GitHub or Gitee secret gists, WebDAV, a custom server, or electerm cloud. Desktop builds cover Windows 7+, macOS 10.15+, and Linux across several processor architectures; mobile versions are available for Android, iOS, and HarmonyOS. The browser version works without installation and supports several remote protocols, but lacks local terminal, serial-port, and web-page features. In electerm online, credentials are stored on the server and SSH connections are proxied through it; the site provides no security guarantees.