Terminalko - SSH Terminal

Terminalko is a small, fast SSH client for Android. Save the servers you already run, tap one, and you are at a shell prompt. Nothing else in the way.

It is a real terminal, not a text box. Terminalko renders a full xterm-256color screen, so htop draws properly, vim redraws properly, colours are colours and the window resizes when you rotate the phone. If it works over SSH on your laptop, it works here.

WHAT IT DOES

- Connect over SSH to any server you have access to, with a password or a private key. Telnet and Mosh are there too, for the kit and the links that need them.
- Keep a list of your servers with name, host, port and user, and reconnect with one tap.
- Run several sessions on the same server and switch between them, without losing what is running in the others.
- Type properly on a phone. A key row puts Ctrl, Alt, Esc, Tab, the arrows and the symbols a shell needs where a phone keyboard hides them, and a full board underneath adds Ctrl combos, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down and F1 to F10. The arrows behave inside vim and less.
- Browse and edit files on the server over SFTP, without leaving the app.
- Generate an Ed25519 key on the phone, or paste one in. Attach it to as many servers as you like.
- Reach a server through a jump host.
- Reconnect on its own when the link drops, and pick tmux back up where you left it.
- Make it yours: 15 terminal themes and 8 monospace faces. 12 themes and 2 faces are free, the rest come with Pro, along with the editor for your own colours.
- Lock the app behind your fingerprint or your screen lock.

YOUR CREDENTIALS STAY ON YOUR PHONE

Passwords, private keys and key passphrases are encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key held in your device's hardware keystore. They are never written to a log, never included in a backup, and never sent anywhere except to the server you are connecting to.

There is no account to create. There is no cloud sync, so there is no copy of your server list on somebody else's computer. Uninstalling the app removes everything it stored.

HOST KEYS ARE CHECKED, NOT WAVED THROUGH

Plenty of mobile SSH apps accept whatever host key the other end offers, which quietly turns the encryption into decoration. Terminalko shows you the SHA256 fingerprint the first time and asks. After that the key is pinned, and if it ever changes the connection fails and says why.

NO ADS, NO TRACKING, NO ANALYTICS

Terminalko has no advertising, no analytics, no crash reporting and no telemetry. The only network connections it makes are to the servers you typed in yourself.

FREE, WITH A ONE OFF UPGRADE

Two saved servers, every protocol, the full terminal and the file browser are free. Terminalko Pro lifts the server limit and unlocks the theme editor, the extra themes and typefaces, and writing over SFTP. One payment, not a subscription.

WHO IT IS FOR

If you run a VPS, a home server, a NAS or a Raspberry Pi, this is for the moment you are not at your desk. Restart a service. Read the logs. Reattach to a tmux session. Check why the disk filled up. Then put the phone away.

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

Being straight about this, because the reviews that hurt are the ones from people who expected something else.

- No port forwarding or tunnels, beyond reaching a server through a jump host.
- No SSH agent, and no agent forwarding.
- No local shell. Terminalko connects to remote machines; it does not run Linux on your phone.

IN YOUR LANGUAGE

English, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Pick one for the app alone in Android's app language settings, or let it follow the phone.

OPEN SOURCE UNDER THE HOOD

The terminal emulator and the SSH library are both open source, under the Apache License 2.0. Full attribution is in the app under Settings, Open source licences.

Terminalko is on iPhone, iPad and Mac too.