A Tabby alternative for the jobs a terminal will not do

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. The issue was still open on 24 September 2026; v1.0.236, the current release, now shows SFTP upload errors instead of failing quietly. 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).

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. Under Settings, Config sync you enter a sync host and a secret token copied from a Tabby Web instance; from then on the config can upload on every change and check for updates every minute, with hotkeys, appearance and the vault as optional parts. The instance itself is 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.

The lighter route is a community plugin: npm carries several that write Tabby's config to a GitHub or Gitee Gist, a WebDAV share or Google Drive. They are third-party code with access to your whole configuration, so read one before trusting it with your hosts.

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. 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.

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 comes with it, each remote desktop in a window of its own, with the limit named up front: CredSSP and NLA only, so 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. 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.

Tabby 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 native. Version 2.16.0 was a 9.3 MB download for Apple silicon; version 2.10.1 took 18 MB on disk for the Apple silicon build and 20.6 MiB for the Intel one, 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. Tabby publishes no figure of its own, and this page will not invent one for it.

The application is free on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad. 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 to check the download against. 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, while the iPhone and iPad app is in the App Store.

• 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.

• Telnet and a serial console, with saved connections, hex input, hexdump output and automatic reconnection. Conchshell has no serial console and opens Telnet sessions without hex input or hexdump output, 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. Conchshell imports the Host entries once, with only the first ProxyJump hop and no forwards, and anything that lives only in Tabby's config.yaml is retyped.
• Forwarding and agents: X11 and port forwarding, and agent forwarding that works with Pageant and the Windows OpenSSH agent. Conchshell has no port forwarding and no agent forwarding; it signs in through ssh-agent on macOS and Linux, and on Windows through the built-in OpenSSH agent, but Pageant does not work yet.
• 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.
• The terminal itself is deeper: a GPU renderer, ligatures, a drop-down window on a global hotkey, arbitrarily nested splits, and multi-chord hotkeys with several bindings per action.
• 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.

1. 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.
2. Add the hosts you actually use. Those in ~/.ssh/config are offered on Conchshell's first screen; there is no Tabby importer, so the rest is typing. Group them into folders as you go, because folders travel later.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Type your passwords and passphrases in once. They go into the vault, XChaCha20-Poly1305, once you accept it; the app offers it 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. On a Mac the vault takes one click; on Windows and Linux it needs a master passphrase of at least 12 characters, from which Argon2id derives the key. Each credential in the vault is tied to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host, so changing the route means the credential is not offered.
6. Leave Tabby installed for a fortnight. The two keep their settings in separate places, and you will know quickly which window you reach for.

Download Conchshell

Is Conchshell free, or is that just the download?

Free is the application itself, on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad: 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 none of the Tabby plugins listed there speaks RDP, checked on 24 September 2026; 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.

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.

How do I sync Tabby between computers now?

app.tabby.sh was discontinued in October 2023 (issue 9131), which is why sync started returning Forbidden on older builds. Built-in sync now needs a Tabby Web server you run yourself, with a database, OAuth credentials and a sync token pasted into Settings, Config sync, and its README says the maintainer has no time to support it. Community plugins sync the config to a Gist, WebDAV or Google Drive instead.

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, once you accept it: the app offers one 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 vault is XChaCha20-Poly1305. On a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Android phone its key sits in the system keychain; on Windows and Linux it is derived by Argon2id from a master phrase of at least 12 characters, with a recovery code. Key slots are independent, so adding or removing one rewraps the key instead of re-encrypting everything. 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 and its local shell profiles, Conchshell for Windows desktops, FTPS and file work, and see which one you actually open first in the morning.

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.

Download Conchshell

• What Conchshell is, in one window
• Download for macOS, Windows and Linux
• Termius alternative without a subscription
• MobaXterm alternative for macOS and Linux
• How the vault and host keys work
• A terminal like iTerm2 on Windows or Linux