What to use when Royal TSX stops fitting

Shareware Mode never expires and asks for nothing, but the ceiling is fixed: no more than 10 connections, no more than 10 credentials, one open document. Those are object counts: nothing in the documentation withholds a protocol, so SSH, RDP and file transfer all work inside the ten. That is a homelab, not a job. On 20 August 2026 the next step was €49.00 excluding VAT for an Individual licence, macOS only.

Conchshell has no gate in that place at all. The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux, with no tiers, no trial and nothing that greys out later, and the only paid feature is syncing saved connections between your own machines for $19 once at the introductory price, $29 afterwards. Host eleven is added the same way as host one.

The licence is perpetual for the version you bought and carries a year of maintenance. After that you keep the last version released while it was active, and a newer one needs a renewal at 50% of list price, available up to six months after expiry. Royal Apps said in writing in April 2026 that it is not going to subscriptions, which is more than most vendors commit to.

The seam still catches people. One MacUpdate reviewer describes installing an update and only afterwards being told the licence did not cover the new version; that is a single account, not a measured pattern, but it is what dated maintenance feels like when it lapses. Here there is one payment of $19, updates are included, and the key is verified on your own machine with no network involved.

Royal TSX is the macOS product. Windows is Royal TS, bought separately, €49.00 each or €79.00 for the pair on 20 August 2026, and the feature lists are not identical: Performance View, External Applications and the in-app shortcut editor are Windows-only. What is genuinely portable is the file, since one .rtsz opens in Royal TS, Royal TSX, Royal TSi and Royal TSD. Linux has no client at all, and the rewrite that would bring one had no public beta and no release date on 20 August 2026.

Conchshell is one application from one codebase: macOS on Apple silicon and Intel, Windows, Linux as .deb, .rpm and .AppImage, with the same JSON bundle moving between them, and Android as an APK from the site. Since 27 October 2026 there is also an iPhone and iPad app, free in the App Store. The honest gap is the Android store: Royal TSi and Royal TSD are in the stores today, and the Conchshell Android build is in none.

Royal TSX is plugin-based, and a fresh install downloads the RDP, terminal and file-transfer plugins from the vendor before it can connect to anything, so an offline machine needs the documented workaround. Their community forum carries threads about crashes, freezes and a window that turns sluggish after days of uptime. Engineers reply there by name and ship fixes, so read that as a recurring theme rather than a verdict.

Conchshell 2.16.0 is a 9.3 MB download for Apple silicon, and version 2.10.1 took 18 MB on disk on Apple silicon and 20.6 MiB for the Intel build, with the protocols compiled in rather than fetched afterwards. The exception is the Windows installer, which pulls Microsoft Edge WebView2 from the network if the machine does not already have it. Four SSH sessions on version 2.10.1 measured 286 MB across 7 processes on 3 August 2026, against 1388 MB and 15 processes for an Electron client on the same machine.

A Royal document is XML underneath. Sensitive fields are encrypted inside it, but full document encryption is something you switch on, and without a document password Royal Apps says its built-in protection should not be considered equivalent to password-based encryption. A third-party GitHub tool that decrypts Royal TS password fields shows what that means in practice. Where the crypto is written down, in a knowledge-base answer rather than on the security page, it is XTS-AES-128 with PBKDF2, and no iteration count is published.

The Conchshell vault is XChaCha20-Poly1305, with independent key slots over a single data key. On a Mac, and on iPhone, iPad and Android, the system keychain opens it without a password; Windows and Linux have no keychain support, so there it takes a master passphrase of at least 12 characters, keyed by Argon2id and asked at every launch, with a recovery code shown once when the vault is created. Changing the passphrase, or adding one to a Mac vault, rewrites a slot instead of re-encrypting the vault. Until you accept the vault, saved passwords stay unencrypted in the application's local data; the app offers to create it each time it starts while any such password remains. The interface can write a credential and delete it; no command reads one back. Credentials in the vault are bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host, so change any of those and the password is not offered.

Host keys go into a TOFU fingerprint store, with the confirmation drawn by the operating system rather than by the application, and RDP and FTPS certificates are pinned the same way on first use; one that your system already trusts for the name you typed is accepted without a question (Android has only the pin), and any other is shown with its details for you to confirm.

Three things do not come across, and it is cheaper to know them before you start. The .rtsz document, because nothing here reads that format. The saved passwords, which are in no export on either side and are retyped once each. And any credential integration, so a connection that pulls its password from CyberArk or a 1Password vault at connect time has no counterpart here. ssh-agent does come across on macOS, Linux and Windows: a connection can sign in through the agent named by SSH_AUTH_SOCK or, on Windows, the built-in OpenSSH agent (not Pageant), although Conchshell never forwards the agent to the server.

The RDP tab needs its own line. Conchshell connects over CredSSP, which is NLA, with no fallback path, so a host with NLA switched off will not connect and nothing here claims parity with mstsc or with FreeRDP.

Getting the list out is the thin half of Royal's design. Import into Royal TSX is broad: .rdp files, CSV, mRemote, RDCMan, Remote Desktop Manager, KeePass, LastPass, 1Password, iTerm2, AWS EC2. Their own knowledge base says the All Objects export really only exports the Name and the Description, and a usable CSV needs the RoyalDocument.PowerShell module. Conchshell writes connections, folders, profiles and settings to a JSON bundle you can read in a text editor, with credentials left out, and the same file is what its import expects, so leaving again does not need a script.

An SSH terminal on a real PTY, with four-way splits, tab groups, session restore and local shell tabs that remember their working directory. A two-pane file manager over SFTP and FTPS with a transfer queue that shows progress, speed and ETA, directory compare and synchronisation, and remote files opened in your own editor and saved back. RDP over CredSSP. Live CPU, memory, disk, process and network figures for the host, and a log viewer with several sources at once, level filters, regex and live tail.

Access is the usual set: proxies over HTTP CONNECT, SOCKS4, SOCKS4a and SOCKS5, SSH jump hosts that carry their own credentials and RDP sessions too, and SSH sessions that reconnect on their own when the link drops. FTPS runs on rustls, with the server certificate pinned on first use as described above.

• You crossed ten hosts and do not want to buy a licence per operating system to carry on.
• Half your machines are not Macs, and you want the same window, the same shortcuts and the same import file on each of them.
• You want the client to offer the encrypted vault itself: XChaCha20-Poly1305, with a key slot for the Mac's system keychain, or a passphrase and recovery code on Windows and Linux, and no command in the interface that reads a saved password back.
• You want to be able to leave again. Connections, folders, profiles and settings come out as a readable JSON bundle, credentials deliberately excluded.
• You want an application rather than a plugin host: 18 MB on disk on Apple silicon for version 2.10.1, and no plugin download standing between a fresh install and an RDP session.

• Your estate is not only Unix. Hyper-V and VMware consoles, TeamViewer, a WebKit browser tab, Windows services, processes and event logs are all tabs in Royal TSX, and none of them exist here.
• Your RDP needs a gateway, several monitors or a redirected drive or printer. Conchshell does RDP over CredSSP only, with no fallback, so a host with NLA disabled will not connect at all.
• Your passwords live in CyberArk, Delinea or Keeper, pulled through Dynamic Credentials at connect time, or in a 1Password, LastPass or KeePass vault that Royal TSX opens directly. Nothing here reads any of those; ssh-agent sign-in exists on macOS, Linux and Windows, but only through the agent named by SSH_AUTH_SOCK or the built-in OpenSSH agent on Windows, not Pageant.
• Your team shares one connection document on a file share, with merge, shared credentials and per-person overrides. Conchshell has no sharing of any kind; its sync moves your own connections between your own machines.
• You need the phone apps, the invoice and a company behind them. Royal TSi and Royal TSD are published and Royal Apps GmbH runs a support portal; Conchshell has an iPhone and iPad app in the App Store, but its Android build ships as an APK from the site rather than a store, and its RDP is CredSSP (NLA) only, with no fallback for a host that has NLA switched off.

1. Decide the scope first. Rebuild the twenty hosts you touch weekly, not the whole document, and leave Royal TSX installed with the .rtsz untouched as your fallback.
2. Pull the inventory. The All Objects CSV export gives name and description only, so read host, port and username from the connection properties, or run the RoyalDocument.PowerShell module with Export-Csv.
3. Install Conchshell from /download/. On a Mac with Apple silicon, Conchshell opens with no extra step. On an Intel Mac with macOS 13 or later the first launch goes through System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway; on macOS 12 the path is System Preferences → Security & Privacy → General.
4. Rebuild the list, either by typing the hosts in or by writing a JSON bundle in the shape Conchshell exports, then importing it: connections, folders, profiles and settings all travel in that one file.
5. Wire up the keys and passwords. Point each connection at the key file already on disk, or at ssh-agent (on Windows the OpenSSH agent, not Pageant), add the passphrase if the key is encrypted, and retype each password once; in the vault it is bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host.
6. Run a week on both. Keep Royal TSX for whatever has not moved, and only uninstall it when nothing has sent you back for a fortnight.

Download Conchshell

Is this Royal TSX alternative actually free?

The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux, with no account, no subscription and no trial to run out. One feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once at the introductory price and $29 later. Nothing else is gated and nothing stops working after a period, and that $19 is a purchase with updates included, not a rental. There is no account to create either: nothing signs in, and the licence key is verified on your own machine without a network. Royal TSX is fair on this point too, since it runs with no registration.

How much does Royal TSX cost?

On 20 August 2026 the buy page listed Individual at €49.00, Site at €849.00, Global at €1,699.00 and Extended Global at €3,199.00, all excluding VAT, all perpetual with a year of maintenance, three years on Extended Global. Royal TS for Windows costs the same but is a separate licence, and the pair is €79.00. Prices for the next major version have been announced separately, so check the shop before you budget.

Does Royal TSX have a Linux version?

No. Royal TSX is macOS only, Royal TS is Windows only, and on 20 August 2026 there was no Linux desktop client from Royal Apps at all. Linux is in the plan for Royal Connect Desktop, the announced rewrite, but that had no public beta and no release date on that day. Conchshell ships .deb, .rpm and .AppImage builds.

Can I open my .rtsz document in Conchshell?

No, and that is the main cost of moving. Conchshell has no Royal importer — it imports its own JSON bundle, ~/.ssh/config and Bitvise .tlp profiles — so the host list is rebuilt by hand or by a short script from a Royal export. Keep the .rtsz and keep Royal TSX installed alongside; the licence you bought is perpetual, so the old document stays openable however the move goes.

What happens when Royal TSX maintenance runs out?

The application keeps working and you keep the last version released while your maintenance was active. What stops is coverage for newer releases, and resuming costs 50% of the current list price, purchasable up to six months after expiry. That is the moment most people start reading pages like this one.

How does syncing work without a cloud?

The encrypted vault is mirrored into a folder you already synchronise yourself, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git working copy, so there is no Conchshell server in the path. Devices linked by a code read off the desktop screen also sync directly over your own network while the app is open on both, so the folder matters only for machines that are rarely on the same network at the same time.

Is the RDP as good as Royal TSX's?

No. Conchshell connects over CredSSP, that is NLA, with no fallback path, so a host with NLA switched off will not connect and no parity with mstsc is claimed. Royal TSX runs FreeRDP with a Remote Desktop Gateway, multi-monitor full screen and drive, printer, audio and clipboard redirection. For plain daily access to an NLA-enabled server, ours is enough.

Copy the .rtsz somewhere safe and rebuild only the hosts you actually touch every day. If the wall was the connection cap, the missing Linux client or the renewal notice, that is an evening's work, and the perpetual licence means the old application is still there if you decide you were wrong.

If the wall was a password vault integration, team sharing or a Hyper-V console, nothing here fixes it and the honest advice is to renew. The application is free on every desktop platform, and the one thing that costs money is syncing your saved connections between your own machines: $19, once.

Download Conchshell

• What Conchshell is
• Download for macOS, Windows and Linux
• How the vault and host keys work
• What is free and what the $19 covers
• A Termius alternative