Tabby is a terminal. Conchshell is a client for four protocols.

Tabby is a terminal first. Nested split panes, a GPU renderer, ligatures, a drop-down window on a global hotkey, and local shells treated as peers of remote ones: PowerShell, WSL, Git-Bash, Cygwin, MSYS2, CMD with Clink completion. It runs on Electron, and its own README says so without flinching: "Neither is it lightweight - if RAM usage is of importance, consider Conemu or Alacritty."

Conchshell is a client for four protocols in one window. An SSH terminal on a real PTY, a two-pane SFTP and FTPS file manager, RDP, and a monitoring view of the host you are on: processor, memory, disk, processes, network, and several log sources tailed at once.

Memory is the number that matters on a laptop. Four SSH sessions here cost 286 MB across seven processes: phys_footprint of the parent and every child, median of three runs, measured on 3 August 2026 on macOS 26.5.2, Apple silicon. The download is 9.1 MB and the Apple silicon build takes 18 MB on disk; the Intel build is 20.6 MiB. Tabby publishes no figure of its own and this page will not invent one for it.

Tabby's SFTP browser lives inside an SSH session that is already open. There is no SFTP-only profile, and the request for one, from somebody whose employer allows SFTP but blocks the shell, was closed as not planned in 2025 (issue 10307).

Reliability is the loud part. "Using the SFTP feature to upload files will interrupt the SSH connection" has been open since August 2025 with 18 comments (issue 10616), and the same defect was filed again against 1.0.227 and 1.0.228. Slow downloads are a separate long-running thread (issue 8972).

Here the file manager is a view of its own: local and remote side by side, drag and drop between them, a transfer queue with progress, speed, ETA, cancel and retry, directory comparison and synchronisation in four explicit steps, and a remote file opened in your own editor, where saving sends it back up. Directory history and pinned directories are kept per server.

"Add Windows RDP option to tabby" (issue 8601) was closed as not planned, and the broader protocol request (issue 6918) has been open since August 2022. There is no plugin escape hatch either: npm has no tabby-rdp package. A mixed Linux and Windows estate needs a second application on top of Tabby.

FTPS is absent too, and worth separating from SFTP because the two get confused constantly. SFTP is file transfer over SSH, which Tabby does; FTPS is FTP wrapped in TLS, and Tabby has no FTP module in its source tree at all. Conchshell speaks both, and its FTPS goes through rustls against your system root certificates.

One limit on this side, stated plainly: RDP here is CredSSP with NLA and nothing else. A host with NLA switched off will not connect, and there is no fallback. If your Windows boxes run with NLA disabled, this does not replace the client you open for them today.

Tabby's hosted config sync was switched off. app.tabby.sh was discontinued in October 2023 (issue 9131) and the replacement is a server you run yourself: a Tabby Web instance, meaning Django, a database and an OAuth provider. Its README carries the maintainer's own note: "At this time I don't have the time to work on tabby-web and won't be able to provide help or support for it."

Sync is the one paid thing here. The application is free; syncing saved connections between your own machines is $19 once, an introductory price that later becomes $29. It is a purchase, not a subscription, updates are included and the key is checked on your own machine without a network. The encrypted vault is mirrored into a folder you already synchronise, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git checkout, and the second machine reads it there. Without such a folder only the first copy travels, by reading a code off the desktop screen.

• Your week includes Windows servers and you would rather not alt-tab to a second application to reach them.
• You have FTPS endpoints: hosting panels, old appliances, a client's upload directory. Tabby cannot see them at all.
• You move files as much as you type, and a two-pane manager with a transfer queue is a different instrument from a panel in a tab.
• You want your saved hosts on two machines without standing up a Django app and an OAuth provider to get them there.

• Telnet and a serial console are built in, with saved connections, hex input, hexdump output and automatic reconnection. Conchshell has neither, and for networking, lab or embedded work that alone settles it.
• Tabby reads your ~/.ssh/config and turns each Host entry into a working profile, ProxyJump and IdentityFile mapped across. Conchshell imports its own JSON bundle and nothing else, so coming from Tabby you retype your hosts by hand.
• Local shells are first-class rather than an afterthought: PowerShell, WSL, Git-Bash, Cygwin, MSYS2, Cmder, CMD with Clink completion, UAC-elevated tabs. Conchshell has local terminal tabs, not that zoo.
• The terminal itself is deeper: arbitrarily nested splits, multi-chord hotkeys with several bindings per action, and roughly 170 plugins installable from the settings window.
• It is MIT-licensed with the whole codebase on GitHub, roughly 74,000 stars on 20 August 2026, and not one paid feature in it. A security team can read how credentials are handled, and an organisation can fork the project if the maintainer stops; Conchshell cannot make that argument, and its sync costs $19.

1. Download the build for your platform. On macOS 13 and later the first launch goes through System Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Open Anyway; on macOS 12 the path is System Preferences, Security and Privacy, General.
2. Open Tabby's config.yaml as your checklist. Settings, then Config file shows it live, and it also sits in %APPDATA%/Tabby, ~/Library/Application Support/tabby or ~/.config/tabby. There is no Tabby importer here, so this file is what you copy from.
3. Recreate the hosts you actually use, then export a JSON bundle from Conchshell. Connections, folders, profiles and settings travel in that file; credentials deliberately do not.
4. Leave your private keys where they are and point the connection at the file in ~/.ssh. Encrypted keys with a passphrase work as they are.
5. Re-enter passwords and key passphrases once. They go into the vault, XChaCha20-Poly1305 with the key derived by Argon2id, and each is bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host. Change any of those and the credential is not offered.
6. Keep Tabby installed for Telnet, serial and its local shells. The two store settings in different places and do not fight.

See what the $19 covers

Is Conchshell really free?

The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux, with no account, no tier and no trial that runs out. One feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once at the introductory price, later $29. It is a purchase rather than a subscription, updates are included, and the licence key is checked on your own machine without a network.

Does Tabby support RDP?

No, and it is not planned. The request to add Windows RDP was closed as not planned (issue 8601), and the wider protocol issue (6918) has been open since August 2022 without being actioned. There is no plugin for it either, as npm carries no tabby-rdp package. Checked on 20 August 2026. Conchshell includes RDP, over CredSSP with NLA only.

Do I need an account for either of them?

Neither asks for one. Tabby installs and runs with no sign-in at all, and Conchshell has no account system to sign into: the licence is verified offline, on the machine it is on. The one place a login appears is Tabby's self-hosted config sync, where a Tabby Web instance wants OAuth credentials from GitHub, GitLab, Google or Microsoft.

Can Tabby connect to FTPS servers?

No. Its source tree carries four kinds of connection, SSH, Telnet, serial and local shells, and no FTP of any sort, so FTP wrapped in TLS is out of reach. No community plugin adds it either. If your hosting panel or appliance speaks FTPS, that stays a separate application unless you move the workload somewhere that handles both.

Why does uploading over SFTP drop my Tabby session?

Because the file browser rides inside the SSH session rather than standing on its own. The defect is open, with 18 comments since August 2025 (issue 10616) and the same report filed again against 1.0.227 and 1.0.228. Here the file manager is a separate two-pane view with its own transfer queue: progress, speed, ETA, cancel and retry.

Can I keep both installed?

Yes, and plenty of people do. They keep their settings in different places, so nothing overwrites anything; Tabby's live in config.yaml under %APPDATA%/Tabby, ~/Library/Application Support/tabby or ~/.config/tabby. Tabby for Telnet, serial consoles and local shells, Conchshell for Windows desktops and file work, is a perfectly sensible arrangement.

Does the $19 renew?

No. There is no second payment, nothing expires and updates are included for good. It covers every machine you use yourself, with no seat count and no activation limit, and because the key is verified offline it keeps working on a laptop that never reaches the internet.

If your day is a terminal, and it includes many local shells, a Telnet device or a serial cable, Tabby is the better tool and it costs nothing. Nothing here changes that.

If your day also has a Windows box to open, an FTPS server to feed and two directories to compare, you are running Tabby plus two other applications. That is the stack this replaces. The application is free; one feature, syncing connections between your own machines, is $19 once.

See what the $19 covers

• What Conchshell is, in one window
• Download for macOS, Windows and Linux
• Conchshell vs MobaXterm
• Conchshell vs Termius
• What is free and what the $19 covers