Core Shell vs electerm
Core Shell
coreshell.app
electerm
electerm.orgSide by side
| Figure | Core Shell | electerm |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $2.50/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · SSH Clients | 8.4 (#5) | 8.9 (#2) |
| Integrations | Premium features include profile syncing across Macs and workflow automation with the Shortcuts app. | Synchronization can use GitHub or Gitee secret gists, WebDAV, custom servers or electerm cloud. |
| Privacy | The maker says app data is stored locally and in iCloud Drive when sync is enabled, and saved passwords and passphrases are stored locally in macOS Keychain rather than sent remotely. | The website collects IP address, browser and operating-system details, visited pages, referring addresses, and device identifiers through cookies and similar technologies. |
| Support | The maker directs users to its community to request support, report bugs, discuss ideas, and provide feedback. | The project provides GitHub issue reporting, discussions, documentation, and community translations. |
Plans
In their own words
Core Shell
Core Shell is a terminal app for managing hosts and opening remote shells with built-in OpenSSH support. It supports remote sessions, certificates and proxy jump, and the maker says a remote host can be reached with one click. Tags help organize large host lists, while per-host advanced SSH options come with contextual help. The app integrates with macOS Keychain for passphrases and can try to restore connections after network failure or waking from sleep. It also supports USB, Bluetooth and built-in serial interfaces, with common UART, RS-232, RS-422 and RS-485 adapters. Its terminal supports Terminal.app, iTerm2 and xterm compatibility and ANSI 16-color, 256-color and 24-bit color modes. SFTP is supported, and sessions use tabs. The free Basic plan allows unlimited hosts. Premium costs $29.99 a year, billed as a 4-Year License, and adds unlimited SSH and serial connections, profile importing and exporting, profile and tag sync across Macs, Shortcuts automation and priority support. It is listed for Mac, iPhone and iPad; macOS 15.0 or later is specified.
electerm
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.