electerm vs Xshell

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.

Xshell is a Windows terminal for connecting to remote hosts and managing sessions. It supports SSH1, SSH2, SFTP, Telnet, Rlogin, serial, and RDP, with SFTP and port forwarding among its listed capabilities. Session, quick command, tab, and file managers help organize remote hosts. Users can create command buttons, trigger actions from terminal patterns, compose multiline input, and generate scripts from terminal input and output. Multiple tabs and tab groups can sit in one window; scripting is available in VB, JScript, and Python. Authentication profiles can store authentication variables for one or more sessions, with profile changes reflected in dependent sessions. Security features include public-key, password, and keyboard-interactive authentication, SSH PKCS#11 and CAPI, multiple encryption algorithms, and master-password encryption for saved passwords. Xshell interoperates with Xmanager, Xagent, and Xftp. The free license is restricted to personal, home, and educational use, excluding commercial use. Paid perpetual single-user options include Xshell at $119, paid once, Xshell Plus at $139, paid once, and Xmanager Power Suite at $399, paid once. A 30-day evaluation is offered without a credit card.