ConchshellA Tabby alternative for the jobs a terminal will not do
Nobody leaves Tabby over the price. It is MIT-licensed, it had no paid tier at all when this was checked on 20 August 2026, no account and nothing to renew. People go looking when they hit the edge of what a terminal emulator is for: a Windows desktop to open, an FTPS endpoint to feed, an upload that keeps taking the shell down with it.
This page is about that moment, and about what the move costs you.
The wall is usually one of three
The first is a Windows server. Tabby has no remote desktop and will not get one: "Add Windows RDP option to tabby" (issue 8601) is closed as not planned, and the wider protocol request (issue 6918) has been open since August 2022. No plugin fills it either, because npm has no tabby-rdp package. So the answer has been a second application, permanently.
The second is FTPS, which is not the same thing as SFTP and gets confused with it constantly. SFTP is file transfer over SSH and Tabby does it; FTPS is FTP wrapped in TLS, and Tabby has no FTP module in its source tree at all. Hosting panels and older appliances often speak only the second one.
The third is the file transfer itself. Tabby's SFTP browser is a panel inside a session you already have open, and uploads that interrupt that session have been reported since August 2025 (issue 10616, 18 comments) and filed again against 1.0.227 and 1.0.228. Slow downloads have their own long-running thread (issue 8972). There is no SFTP-only profile: the request, from somebody whose employer allows SFTP but blocks the shell, was closed as not planned in 2025 (issue 10307).
Two smaller ones, before you decide it is your setup at fault. With more than 1,500 entries in ~/.ssh/config the host list is reported as barely usable (issue 10514). And upgrades occasionally take logins with them: "Authentication failed with version 1.0.222. Works with 1.0.221" ran to 42 comments (issue 10347).
Config sync is now a server you run yourself
If you came looking because sync stopped working, that is not your configuration. The hosted service, app.tabby.sh, was discontinued in October 2023 (issue 9131), and users on older builds reported it simply answering "Error: Forbidden".
The replacement is Tabby Web on your own infrastructure: a Django application, a database, OAuth credentials from GitHub, GitLab, Google or Microsoft, and a separate connection gateway if you want a terminal in the browser. 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." That is an honest warning, and it is also a lot of infrastructure for moving your own host list between your own two laptops.
Conchshell needs no server for it. The encrypted vault file is written into whichever folder already syncs for you, iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git working copy, and the second machine picks it up from there; nothing passes through anybody's cloud, because there is no cloud in the path. The catch, stated plainly: with no such folder, only the first copy travels, by reading a code off the desktop screen.
What replaces the panel
The file browser stops being a tab decoration. Local and remote sit side by side, you drag between them, and the transfer queue shows progress, speed and ETA with cancel and retry. Directory comparison and synchronisation run in four explicit steps with nothing implicit, a remote file opens in your own editor and saving sends it back up, and directory history and pinned directories are kept per server.
RDP arrives in the same window, with the limit named up front: CredSSP and NLA only, so a host with NLA switched off will not connect. Alongside it there is a monitoring view of the machine you are on, with processor, memory, disk, processes, bandwidth per interface, latency, open connections, and several log sources tailed at once behind level and regex filters.
It is native rather than Electron. The download is 9.1 MB, the Apple silicon build takes 18 MB on disk and the Intel one 20.6 MiB, and four SSH sessions cost 286 MB across seven processes, measured on 3 August 2026 on macOS 26.5.2, Apple silicon, median of three runs. Every commit runs 1,879 tests.
Free, and then one thing that is not
The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux. There is no account, no sign-in, no tier and no trial that expires. One feature is paid, and it is sync: keeping saved connections in step between your own machines costs $19 once at the introductory price, later $29. That is a purchase and not a subscription, updates are included, there is no seat count and the key is checked on your own machine without a network.
Three things you should hear before downloading rather than after. Every release ships a SHA256SUMS file, and the packages the updater installs have detached .sig files; the two .dmg files do not. The Windows installer fetches Microsoft Edge WebView2 over the network if the machine does not already have it. And the Android build is not in Google Play: it installs as an APK from this site, and there is no iOS build yet.
Signs it is time to add something else
- A Windows server is part of your week, and reaching it currently means a second application every time.
- You have FTPS endpoints that Tabby cannot see at all: hosting panels, older appliances, a client's upload directory.
- An upload that matters has failed and taken the shell with it, or a download crawled, and you have started checking the issue tracker before trying again.
- Your day has more file work than typing, and you want a two-pane manager with directory comparison rather than a browser panel inside a tab.
- You want your host list on two machines and are not willing to run Django, a database and an OAuth provider to get it there.
Reasons to keep Tabby installed
- Telnet and a serial console, with saved connections, hex input, hexdump output and automatic reconnection. Conchshell has neither, so if your work involves switches, PDUs or boards on a cable, Tabby stays the main window.
- Automatic reading of ~/.ssh/config, with ProxyJump, IdentityFile and forwards mapped into real profiles. Nothing here reads your ssh config, so the first hour after switching is retyping hosts.
- The local shell zoo on Windows: PowerShell, WSL, Git-Bash, Cygwin, MSYS2, Cmder, CMD with Clink completion and UAC-elevated tabs. Conchshell has plain local terminal tabs, not that zoo.
- An MIT licence, roughly 74,000 stars on 20 August 2026, around 170 plugins on npm, and a codebase your security team can read and your organisation can fork if the maintainer stops. Conchshell cannot make that argument, and nothing in Tabby costs money in the first place.
Getting your hosts across without a wizard
- Install Conchshell, then open Tabby's config.yaml beside it as your working list. Settings, then Config file shows it in the app, and it lives at %APPDATA%/Tabby, ~/Library/Application Support/tabby or ~/.config/tabby.
- Add the hosts you actually use. There is no Tabby importer, so this part is typing. Group them into folders as you go, because folders travel later.
- Export a JSON bundle from Conchshell once the list looks right. Connections, folders, profiles and settings are in it; credentials are deliberately left out, so the export alone will not open anything.
- Point each connection at the private key you already have, in ~/.ssh or wherever it lives. Nothing is copied or converted, and encrypted keys with a passphrase work as they are.
- Type your passwords and passphrases in once. They go into the vault, XChaCha20-Poly1305 with the key derived by Argon2id, and each is tied to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host, so changing the route means the credential is not offered.
- Leave Tabby installed for a fortnight. The two keep their settings in separate places, and you will know quickly which window you reach for.
Questions people actually ask
Is Conchshell free, or is that just the download?
Free is the application itself, on macOS, Windows and Linux: no account, no tier, no trial that expires and nothing that greys itself out. One feature is paid, syncing saved connections between your own machines, at $19 once, introductory, later $29. That is a purchase, not a subscription, updates are included and the key is checked on your own machine without a network.
Can I add RDP to Tabby with a plugin?
No. npm has no tabby-rdp package, and the plugin API is built around terminal sessions, so a bitmap protocol is not a weekend job for anybody. The feature request itself was closed as not planned (issue 8601) and the wider one has sat open since August 2022 (issue 6918). Remote desktop means a second application, or a different one.
What happened to app.tabby.sh?
It was discontinued in October 2023 (issue 9131), which is why sync started returning Forbidden on older builds. Nothing on your side broke. The replacement is Tabby Web on your own server, with a database, OAuth credentials and a separate connection gateway, and its README carries the maintainer's note that he has no time to work on it.
Do I need an account for Conchshell?
There is no account to create. Nothing signs in, and the licence key for sync is checked on your own machine without a network. Syncing works by mirroring the encrypted vault into a folder you already synchronise, so your host list goes where your files already go and not through anybody else.
Can I import my Tabby config.yaml?
Not directly, and that is worth knowing before you start. There is no Tabby importer, so config.yaml serves as your checklist while you add the hosts you actually use. After that, Conchshell has its own export, a JSON bundle covering connections, folders, profiles and settings, with credentials deliberately excluded from it.
Where does Conchshell keep my passwords?
In an encrypted vault: XChaCha20-Poly1305, with the key derived from your master phrase by Argon2id, and independent key slots for a passphrase, the operating system keychain and a recovery code. The interface can create and delete a credential but has no command to read one back. Host keys use a fingerprint store, and the confirmation dialog is drawn by the operating system.
Do I have to uninstall Tabby?
No, and it would be a strange thing to do. They keep their settings in separate locations and do not compete for anything. Run both for a fortnight: Tabby for serial consoles, Telnet and its local shell profiles, Conchshell for Windows desktops, FTPS and file work, and see which one you actually open first in the morning.
You do not have to pick a side
Plenty of people run both: Tabby for local shells and serial, this for Windows boxes, FTPS and anything involving a file that matters. That is a reasonable end state, not a failure to choose.
If your day has stopped being mostly a terminal, though, the second application is the one worth opening first. The app is free; one feature, syncing connections between your own machines, is $19 once.