A free iTerm2 alternative for the machines iTerm2 will not run on

The question that brings most people to this page is some version of iterm2 for windows, and it has no answer. There is no Windows build and no Linux build, and the third-party pages published under that title are not the vendor's and do not install iTerm2. iTerm2 is one Mac binary — 3.6.11, built 2 June 2026, macOS 12.4 or newer — and staying that way is a decision, not an oversight.

Conchshell is the same application on macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), on Windows, and on Linux as .deb, .rpm and .AppImage. The terminal, the file panes and the settings behave the same on each; the saved hosts move between machines either in the JSON export bundle, which is free, or through the sync feature, which is the one paid part. Two gaps worth saying out loud before you download anything: the Android build is an APK from this site and not in any store, and there is no iOS application, so an iPhone is not covered.

iTerm2's file transfer is real and better than its reputation. Right-click a filename in the output to download it, option-drag from Finder to upload, run it2dl and it2ul from the shell-integration utilities, and with SSH Integration on, remote directories show up in the macOS open and save panels. For pulling one log off one box, that is plenty.

It stops being plenty when moving the files is the job. The vendor's documentation calls it scp from end to end and never claims SFTP, there is no second pane, no documented queue to watch or retry from, and no way to open a transfer without a terminal session behind it first. Push a directory of several hundred files over a link that keeps dropping and you will find each of those edges in turn.

What takes its place in Conchshell is a file manager occupying the other half of the window: two panes, drag-and-drop between them, and a queue showing progress, speed and ETA, with cancel and retry per item. Comparing and synchronising two directories runs as four explicit steps, so nothing is deleted on an assumption. A remote file opens in whichever editor you already use, and saving sends it back. FTPS works over rustls against the system root certificates — certificate pinning is not implemented yet, which is worth knowing if that is why you are switching.

The third wall is RDP, and there is nothing to compare: iTerm2 has none, which is the right call for a terminal emulator. Conchshell has it in the same window, over CredSSP with NLA and nothing else, so a host with NLA switched off will not connect and the Microsoft client is not fully replaced.

That is the fair worry when you move off iTerm2: you are swapping a long-established terminal emulator for a younger one. What you get is a real PTY with xterm.js and WebGL rendering, search and link detection, splits in four directions, tab groups, session restore on launch, ten themes and seven fonts, plus local tabs that remember their working directory.

Some numbers, since a slower machine is often part of the reason for leaving. The download is 9.1 MB and it takes 18 MB on disk on Apple silicon, 20.6 MiB for the Intel build. Four SSH sessions sat at 286 MB across seven processes, measured on 3 August 2026 on macOS 26.5.2, Apple silicon; iTerm2 was not measured the same way, so read that as a figure for one side only. Every commit runs 1879 tests.

What is not there is the deep end: no triggers, no Instant Replay, no tmux control mode, no Python API, no Automatic Profile Switching. If you use those every day, that is the trade, and it is not a small one.

iTerm2 is free in the strongest sense on offer, checked 20 August 2026: GPL v2, public source, no account, no licence key, nothing paywalled. If your requirement is that no money ever changes hands, iTerm2 already meets it on a Mac and this page cannot beat that.

Conchshell is free on every platform, with no account and no subscription, and one feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once. That is an introductory price and becomes $29 later. The key is checked offline, updates are included, and there is no limit on how many of your own machines it covers.

The sync is not a cloud service. The encrypted store is mirrored into a folder you already sync — iCloud Drive, Dropbox, a git checkout — and the second machine reads it there. The limitation, plainly: without such a folder, only the first copy travels, by reading a code off the desktop screen. On a phone this means the Android build, which copies your connections from a computer over your own network; it is not in the stores, and there is no iOS build at all.

• Your new machine runs Windows or Linux and you want the host list you had on the Mac.
• You need RDP and SSH in one window instead of two applications with two host lists.
• You have FTPS servers — FTP over TLS, not SFTP — and iTerm2's documentation does not mention them.
• Right-click-and-download has become the slow part of your day.
• You want saved credentials in an encrypted store tied to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host.

• You live in tmux -CC. Nothing here reproduces control mode, and the way a tmux session survives a dropped link and comes back as native tabs is the best thing in this category.
• You depend on triggers, Instant Replay, Automatic Profile Switching or the Python API. There is no weaker equivalent here; there is no equivalent.
• You need OpenSSH to behave exactly as OpenSSH does — ProxyJump, ControlMaster, certificates, FIDO keys, agent forwarding — because iTerm2 runs the system ssh. Conchshell does not use ssh-agent at all.
• You want source you can read. iTerm2 is GPL v2 on GitHub with a public bug tracker; Conchshell publishes SHA256SUMS and detached .sig files for the packages that auto-update, and neither .dmg has a signature file at all, which is not the same thing as readable source.
• You only ever use a Mac, and only ever a terminal. Then none of the walls above are yours, and iTerm2 is the better tool.

1. Download the build for the machine that made you leave: .msi or the setup .exe on Windows, .deb, .rpm or .AppImage on Linux, .dmg on the Mac. The Windows installer pulls Microsoft Edge WebView2 down if the machine has not got it.
2. On macOS, expect the first launch to need System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Open Anyway; on macOS 12 that path is System Preferences, Security & Privacy, General.
3. Rebuild the host list from ~/.ssh/config: host, port, user. There is no importer for ssh_config, and none for iTerm2's profiles, so this part is typing — the slowest thing in the whole move.
4. Copy your key files across yourself and point each connection at the file. Keys with a passphrase work; ssh-agent is not used, so anything relying on a running agent will not carry over.
5. Re-enter the passwords once. They go into the encrypted store — XChaCha20-Poly1305, key derived with Argon2id — bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host, and cannot be read back out afterwards.
6. Set up your second machine from the first: export the JSON bundle of connections, folders, profiles and settings and import it there, or buy the sync if you would rather it happened by itself. The credentials never travel in that file, so type those again.

Get the Windows or Linux build

Is there an iTerm2 for Windows?

No, and there never has been. iTerm2 is a macOS application and the vendor offers no Windows or Linux build; pages published elsewhere under that title are not theirs and do not install iTerm2. What you can have is a client doing the same job on all three systems. Conchshell runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, and the host list you build on one can be exported to the others as a JSON bundle.

Is Conchshell really free?

The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux, with no account, no subscription and nothing that greys out after a fortnight. One feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once, introductory and rising to $29. SSH, the file manager, FTPS, RDP and host monitoring cost nothing and keep working.

Do I have to sign in or create an account?

No. There is no account to create, so there is nothing to sign into and nothing to be locked out of. Even the paid sync works offline: the key is checked on your own machine, and the encrypted store is mirrored into a folder you already sync rather than into anyone's cloud.

Does iTerm2 do SFTP?

Not as a claim. File transfer over SSH exists and works, but the vendor's documentation calls it scp everywhere and the word SFTP appears nowhere in it, as of 20 August 2026. In practice that means right-click downloads, option-drag uploads and the it2dl and it2ul utilities: no second pane, no documented queue, and a terminal session has to exist first. FTPS, which is FTP over TLS and a different protocol again, is not mentioned at all.

Will my iTerm2 colour schemes and key bindings come across?

No. The .itermcolors files, the exported key bindings and the DynamicProfiles folder are iTerm2 formats, and nothing here reads them. Conchshell has ten themes, seven fonts, background images and transparency, and its own shortcuts for common actions are editable in settings, but you will be choosing them again rather than importing them.

What happens to my SSH keys?

Nothing. They stay in ~/.ssh, or wherever you keep them, and each saved connection points at the file. Keys with a passphrase are supported. ssh-agent is not used at all, so anything depending on a running agent, or on agent forwarding, will not behave the way it does inside iTerm2.

iTerm2 is not what you are trying to escape. The Mac is, or the terminal's edges are. It is the best terminal on that operating system, it costs nothing, and if you are staying on macOS and in text, this page has nothing to sell you.

If the job has moved off the Mac, or moved past text — a Windows server that needs a desktop, an FTPS host, a directory that needs comparing — then you need a program of a different shape. The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux; one feature, syncing saved connections between your own machines, is $19 once. Keep iTerm2 on the Mac anyway.

Get the Windows or Linux build

• What Conchshell is
• Downloads for macOS, Windows and Linux
• What the $19 sync covers
• Conchshell vs MobaXterm
• A Termius alternative that charges once