There is no iTerm2 for Windows or Linux. Here is what to use instead

iTerm2 is a replacement for the Mac's Terminal app. It draws a shell running on your own machine, and when you type ssh in it, it runs the system OpenSSH client inside a tab. Everything it is known for, the hotkey window, Instant Replay, triggers, tmux integration, Automatic Profile Switching and the Python API, is built on macOS and for macOS. It is free under GPL v2, with the source on GitHub.

That is also why no Windows or Linux port exists. It is not a cross-platform program with two builds missing; it is a Mac application through and through, and the project has never offered anything else. Since September 2026 there is an iPhone and iPad companion, iTerm2 Buddy, free in the App Store: it shows the Mac's iTerm2 sessions live and lets you type into them, but it works only paired with that Mac and is not an SSH client of its own. Anything called iTerm2 that installs on Windows is somebody else's software using the name.

On Windows the closest thing to what iTerm2 does is Microsoft's own Windows Terminal. It is free and open source under the MIT licence, needs Windows 10 version 2004 or newer, and gives you tabs, panes, GPU-drawn text, themes and rebindable shortcuts, with a profile for each shell: PowerShell, Command Prompt, Azure Cloud Shell and any WSL distribution. If the job is a nicer place to run PowerShell or bash on the machine in front of you, start there.

On Linux, the terminal your desktop already ships is a reasonable starting point, and there are many more. If you want one program that behaves the same on macOS, Windows and Linux, Tabby is free under the MIT licence, runs on all three, treats local shells and SSH sessions alike and adds Telnet and serial consoles; it is built on Electron, which its own README is candid about. We have a separate page comparing it with Conchshell.

Conchshell is not the answer to this half, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise. It has local terminal tabs, and they remember their working directory, but each system gets one shell: your login shell on macOS and Linux, and on Windows PowerShell 7 when it is installed, otherwise Windows PowerShell, otherwise Command Prompt. There is no profile per shell, no WSL picker and no hotkey window.

Many people who search for an iTerm2 replacement on a Windows or Linux laptop were really using iTerm2 as the place they reached servers from. That part carries over well. Conchshell's terminal is a real PTY drawn by xterm.js with WebGL, with search, splits in four directions, tab groups, sessions restored at launch, twelve themes, background images and transparency.

The difference is that the servers become a list rather than a line in your shell history. Each connection keeps its host, port, user, key, proxy and jump host, and saved passwords go into an encrypted vault once you create one: XChaCha20-Poly1305, its key kept in the system keychain on a Mac and derived by Argon2id from a master passphrase of at least 12 characters on Windows and Linux; the app offers to set it up when it starts, at every start while a saved password is still unencrypted, and until then a saved password sits unencrypted in its local data. The same list works on macOS, Windows and Linux, carried between machines by a free JSON export or by sync, the one paid feature at $19 once.

Say the gaps plainly, because they are the reason to keep iTerm2 on any Mac you still use. Conchshell has no tmux control mode, so a dropped link does not bring tmux windows back as native tabs. It has no triggers, no Instant Replay, no Automatic Profile Switching and no scripting API. It carries its own SSH implementation rather than running OpenSSH, so it reads the Host entries of ~/.ssh/config once, on import, with only the first ProxyJump hop. It can sign in through ssh-agent on macOS, Linux and Windows, the agent named by SSH_AUTH_SOCK rather than an IdentityAgent line (on Windows the built-in OpenSSH agent by default, not Pageant), but never forwards it, and it uses an OpenSSH user certificate only when a -cert.pub file sits beside the key file. Because iTerm2 runs the system ssh, ProxyJump, ControlMaster, certificates, FIDO keys and agent forwarding all behave there exactly as OpenSSH implements them. Nor does Conchshell match iTerm2's terminal emulation depth: well over a decade of escape-sequence coverage, 24-bit colour, ligatures, inline images, OSC 8 hyperlinks and a Metal GPU renderer. If a remote TUI renders anywhere, it renders there.

If your day is terminal work on your own machine, a local terminal emulator is the right tool on every platform, and on a Mac iTerm2 remains a very good one. Conchshell is for the other shape of day, the one that is a list of servers.

If you are staying on a Mac, the question is not a replacement but a second window, and the two have different shapes. SSH out of iTerm2 and you are running the system OpenSSH binary inside a tab: ~/.ssh/config is the host database. Conchshell carries its own SSH stack (russh 0.54, Ed25519 preferred among host keys, curve25519-sha256 at the head of the key exchange), its own list of saved connections, and a file manager and host monitoring in the same window, with each RDP session in a window of its own.

iTerm2 does move files, and more capably than people expect. Right-click a filename in the output to download it, option-drag from Finder to upload, use it2dl and it2ul from the shell-integration utilities, and with SSH Integration on, remote hosts appear in the macOS open and save panels; it uses libssh2 and checks host fingerprints. What it is not is a file manager. The documentation calls it scp throughout and never claims SFTP; there is no dual-pane browser, no documented transfer queue, and no transfer-only session without a terminal attached first. Out of ssh_config that path reads only Host, HostName, User, Port and IdentityFile, so a host needing anything more exotic works in the terminal but not in the transfer.

Nor is it a connection manager in the SSH-client sense: there is no list of servers with credentials saved against them, only Profiles, profile tags and ~/.ssh/config. Its Password Manager is somewhere to keep a password and paste it, held in the macOS Keychain or, per the 3.5.0 changelog, in an external vault: 1Password and LastPass, with Bitwarden and Keeper added in 3.6.10. It names no cipher of its own; storage is delegated to Apple. RDP does not appear in its documentation at all, so a Windows server in your week is a second application on top.

Older Macs are covered on that side too: the 3.6 branch still runs on macOS 12.4 and the 3.5 branch on 10.15 and up.

Setting Conchshell up beside it on the same Mac takes three steps, and nothing needs copying:

1. Let it import ~/.ssh/config: its first screen offers the Host entries it finds, with HostName, User, Port, IdentityFile and the first ProxyJump hop.
2. Point each connection at its key in ~/.ssh, where it already is. Keys with a passphrase work, and so does ssh-agent: choose SSH Agent as the sign-in method.
3. Accept the vault when the app offers it: it asks at every start while a saved password is still unencrypted, and on a Mac it takes one click, with the key in your login keychain. Until you accept, saved passwords stay unencrypted in the application's local data.

On a Mac with Apple silicon, Conchshell opens with no extra step. On an Intel Mac the first launch needs System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Open Anyway on macOS 13 and newer; on macOS 12 the path is System Preferences, Security & Privacy, General. Leave iTerm2 as the default terminal; most people end up with both.

• A two-pane file manager beside the terminal: local and remote side by side, drag and drop, a transfer queue with speed, ETA, cancel and retry, and directory comparison before anything is synchronised. It speaks SFTP, FTPS and plain FTP. FTPS accepts a certificate the system already trusts without a prompt and pins it, except on Android, where every certificate goes through the prompt; any other is pinned once you confirm it, and after that its chain, name and dates are not checked, so compare the fingerprint on that first prompt. Closing the prompt without pressing a button counts as a refusal, on every platform; in 2.16.0 and earlier, closing it on Windows and Linux counted as trust, which was fixed in 2.17.0.
• RDP, each session in a window of its own, with the limit stated up front: CredSSP with NLA only, so a host with NLA switched off will not connect, and it does not replace the Microsoft client.
• A monitoring view of the host you are on: CPU, memory, disk, processes, bandwidth per interface, latency and several logs tailed at once.
• SOCKS5, SOCKS4, SOCKS4a and HTTP CONNECT proxies, and an SSH jump host, set per connection in a dialog, for SSH, SFTP and RDP.
• The same application on macOS, Windows and Linux, and an Android APK from this site, which is not in the stores. On iPhone and iPad, a free App Store app that connects to servers on its own: SSH, SFTP, FTPS and RDP, with no local terminal.

1. Download the build for the new machine: the .exe or .msi on Windows, .deb, .rpm or .AppImage on Linux. The Windows installer fetches Microsoft Edge WebView2 if the machine does not have it.
2. Copy ~/.ssh/config across and let Conchshell import it: its first screen offers the Host entries it finds, with HostName, User, Port, IdentityFile and the first ProxyJump hop.
3. Copy your key files and point each connection at its file. Keys with a passphrase work, and so does ssh-agent, on Windows the built-in OpenSSH agent (Pageant does not work yet): choose SSH Agent as the sign-in method.
4. Type the passwords in once and accept the offer to create the vault when it appears; on Windows and Linux it asks for a master passphrase of at least 12 characters and gives you a recovery code to keep somewhere else.
5. There is no importer for iTerm2 profiles, Dynamic Profiles or .itermcolors files, so choose a theme and shortcuts again. On the Mac, keep iTerm2 where it is.

Get the Windows or Linux build

Is there an iTerm2 for Windows?

No, and there never has been. iTerm2 is a macOS application, 3.7.3 needs macOS 13 or newer, and the project offers no Windows build; downloads published elsewhere under that name are not iTerm2. For a local terminal on Windows, Microsoft's free Windows Terminal is the nearest equivalent. For connecting to servers, with files in the same window and each remote desktop in a window of its own, Conchshell runs on Windows 10 and 11.

Is there an iTerm2 for Linux?

No. There is no Linux build and the project has never offered one. For a local terminal, start with the one your desktop ships, or try Tabby, which is free, MIT-licensed and runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. Conchshell installs on Linux from .deb, .rpm or .AppImage, and covers the SSH, file transfer and RDP side rather than the local shell.

What is the closest thing to iTerm2 on Windows?

For the local terminal, Windows Terminal: free, open source, tabs and panes, themes, rebindable shortcuts and a profile for PowerShell, Command Prompt and each WSL distribution. For the triggers, tmux control mode and Python API that make iTerm2 unusual, there is no close match on Windows. For reaching servers, Conchshell adds saved connections, a two-pane file manager and RDP beside the terminal.

Can Conchshell replace iTerm2 as my everyday terminal?

For SSH sessions to servers, yes: a real PTY, xterm.js with WebGL, search, four-way splits, tab groups, session restore and twelve themes. As a local terminal you live in all day, no. It opens one default shell per system, with no per-shell profiles, no tmux integration, no triggers and no scripting API. Keep a proper terminal emulator for that and use Conchshell for the servers.

Is Conchshell free?

The application is free on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad, with no account, no subscription and nothing that greys out. One feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once, an introductory price that becomes $29 later. SSH, the file manager, FTPS, RDP and host monitoring cost nothing and keep working.

Will my iTerm2 profiles and colour schemes come across?

No. Profiles, Dynamic Profiles, .itermcolors files and key bindings are iTerm2 formats and nothing here reads them. What does come across is ~/.ssh/config: Conchshell imports its Host entries with HostName, User, Port, IdentityFile and the first ProxyJump hop, and offers them on the first screen. Themes and shortcuts are chosen again in settings.

Is iTerm2's SSH integration safe to use?

Read the vendor's own notes before switching it on. They label SSH Integration a beta-quality feature and it wants Python 3 on the remote host. In January 2025 the 3.5.11 changelog disclosed that versions 3.5.6 to 3.5.10 logged session input and output to /tmp/framer.txt on the remote host, where other users could read it. It was fixed quickly and documented plainly.

There is no iTerm2 off the Mac. For a local terminal, try Windows Terminal on Windows and your desktop's own terminal or Tabby on Linux. For a window full of servers, with files and a Windows desktop in reach, try Conchshell: the application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux, and one feature, syncing saved connections between your own machines, is $19 once.

If you are choosing between the two on a Mac rather than replacing iTerm2 elsewhere, keep iTerm2 for the terminal and add Conchshell for the list of servers, the files and the Windows box.

• Conchshell on a Mac
• Tabby, the cross-platform terminal, compared
• Conchshell on Windows
• Conchshell on Linux
• How credentials are stored
• What is free and what the $19 sync covers