Launch HN: Termius (YC W19) – SSH client that works on desktop and mobile
142 comments
Can I just vent on how extremely annoyed I am about normal bits of software, that aren't even genuinely a service, being priced on a subscription basis at ridiculous price levels?
5$ per month is $300 over a five-year time period, which might be the lifetime of, say, a newly bought laptop computer. Now imagine you're at an electronics store, looking at laptops, and there are two identical laptops sitting in front of you. One has a pricetag that says $1000. The other has a price-tag that says $1300. You ask the sales clerk: "What's the difference between those two?" The sales clerk answers: "This one comes with a piece of software that lets you SSH into remote machines." You answer: "But there's free software to do that." The sales clerk goes. "Well... But it's colorful and shit." Seriously?
5$ per month is $300 over a five-year time period, which might be the lifetime of, say, a newly bought laptop computer. Now imagine you're at an electronics store, looking at laptops, and there are two identical laptops sitting in front of you. One has a pricetag that says $1000. The other has a price-tag that says $1300. You ask the sales clerk: "What's the difference between those two?" The sales clerk answers: "This one comes with a piece of software that lets you SSH into remote machines." You answer: "But there's free software to do that." The sales clerk goes. "Well... But it's colorful and shit." Seriously?
A related point that bugs me is how subscriptions exclude many people because of the costs. People in countries with lower income and weaker currencies, as well as people in developed countries with lower incomes, may save up for a few years to get a relatively good machine or phone (probably used or an older model), but yet they get stung with subscription prices that don’t consider these aspects.
Every time I hear “for less than the price of a cup of coffee”, I groan, thinking that some people are so stuck in their tiny worlds that they don’t know or don’t care about the cost of coffee elsewhere and what people do with their money other than sipping expensive coffee with free WiFi or whatever.
I clearly get that the developers need to sustain themselves so that they stay in business and the customers benefit from their staying in business for longer. But somewhere in all this, I feel there’s some empathy missing, and also missing is some thought on a larger (and segmented) market with tiered and lower prices based on different factors.
Every time I hear “for less than the price of a cup of coffee”, I groan, thinking that some people are so stuck in their tiny worlds that they don’t know or don’t care about the cost of coffee elsewhere and what people do with their money other than sipping expensive coffee with free WiFi or whatever.
I clearly get that the developers need to sustain themselves so that they stay in business and the customers benefit from their staying in business for longer. But somewhere in all this, I feel there’s some empathy missing, and also missing is some thought on a larger (and segmented) market with tiered and lower prices based on different factors.
I share the frustration. I can get office365, with 1T of onedrive, mail, office apps etc for 15 / month, a subscription of even 5 a month is just nuts. Especially since the subscriptions seem to be just stacking up.
I’m glad you guys are making a living, but I can’t justify yet another subscription.
I’m glad you guys are making a living, but I can’t justify yet another subscription.
Yes, thinking back to the days of e.g. F-Secure, or all in ones like Coda that included terminals, $10/year or $0.99/month would be a more appropriate revenue stream for the feature work on an ssh client sized app.
Termius is free if you just want a nice terminal emulator. You only need to pay if you start using the features that securely sync your connection details between devices, and frankly that's a really useful feature.
Actually, ANOTHER trend in software that annoys me is cloudifying things that don't need to be cloudified and even things where cloudification is more of a liability than an asset. An ssh client is something I trust with passwords that I type in on remote machines, private keys that unlock all kinds of security sensitive stuff, send back and forth pieces of code that are valuable intellectual property, etc. etc. -- I really really really, don't want that thing to start "calling home" under any circumstances, period.
> You only need to pay if you start using the features that securely sync your connection details between devices
That is its one advantage over regular ssh and e.g. JuiceSSH for Android. I can also sync my connection details over dropbox (host+port) and authenticate each device using public keys. Yes, Termius would be a lot more convenient, but the parent's point stands that "is this convenience worth 60$/yr".
I suspect the answer is yes to a big enough portion of sysadmins, especially if they can get their company to pay for the license. The rest of the poor folk get to learn how to build it themselves, as usual.
That is its one advantage over regular ssh and e.g. JuiceSSH for Android. I can also sync my connection details over dropbox (host+port) and authenticate each device using public keys. Yes, Termius would be a lot more convenient, but the parent's point stands that "is this convenience worth 60$/yr".
I suspect the answer is yes to a big enough portion of sysadmins, especially if they can get their company to pay for the license. The rest of the poor folk get to learn how to build it themselves, as usual.
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There’s this catch though, that iCloud, Dropbox, One Drive, Box, and/or Google Drive also securely sync between devices and carry connection details. Almost everyone in target demographic already pays to sync one way or another. Apps like Ulysses, Bear or PDF Expert that simply ride on top of that understand this, and charge for genuinely differentiating features.
You need the $5/month subscription to use SFTP, a basic feature of SSH. That is ludicrous.
> You only need to pay if you start using the features that securely sync your connection details between devices,
SFTP, multiple sessions, agent forwarding, pasting passwords, autocomplete
These are pretty basic features that don’t require syncing that are not available on the free version.
SFTP, multiple sessions, agent forwarding, pasting passwords, autocomplete
These are pretty basic features that don’t require syncing that are not available on the free version.
All you saw in Termius is that it is "colorful and shit"? Seriously?
I used it back when it only cost 10€ per year. It was polished, but didn't really do anything special. I considered buying it but as a light user, I couldn't justify the price.
Now its 50€/Year, and are so many other great SSH Apps on iOS that I just don't see why I would ever pay that much for it.
I guess that's the curse of subscriptions. You can only sell it to your most dedicated users, which means that you have to raise the price even more.
If I'm any indication, there are a lot of free Termius users, who would be willing to pay a one time fee just to get the most basic features like sFTP and Tabs.
Now its 50€/Year, and are so many other great SSH Apps on iOS that I just don't see why I would ever pay that much for it.
I guess that's the curse of subscriptions. You can only sell it to your most dedicated users, which means that you have to raise the price even more.
If I'm any indication, there are a lot of free Termius users, who would be willing to pay a one time fee just to get the most basic features like sFTP and Tabs.
I too find the price too steep, for the use I'd have. I'm not interested in sync, I'm just interested in the advanced ssh features (sftp, background sessions, tabs, hops). 50€/year for just this is way too much.
I agree, it would be nice to see an approach that allowed access to just advanced ssh features (if you can call something like sftp an advanced feature) for a slightly less steep price point.
I find it funny that a SSH client TCO approaches that of a Chromebook.
I've used Termius on my iPhone a few times when I needed to complete a small task and couldn't be at a computer. For that use case, it's been fantastic!
However, Termius on the desktop (Windows, in this case) falls short of the usability threshold for me because of slow performance, especially at high resolutions. When scrolling a large number of characters across the screen, performance is significantly worse than using Linux terminals like gnome-terminal or Terminal.app on macOS.
Every few months I end up installing the latest version of Termius to see if the performance issues have been fixed, but they have not. Instead, I'm using an installation of mate-terminal on Ubuntu for WSL combined with the X410 server. It's much more clunky to set up and use, but performance is great.
I expect that with the introduction of Windows Terminal, Termius will lose ground if it doesn't improve.
However, Termius on the desktop (Windows, in this case) falls short of the usability threshold for me because of slow performance, especially at high resolutions. When scrolling a large number of characters across the screen, performance is significantly worse than using Linux terminals like gnome-terminal or Terminal.app on macOS.
Every few months I end up installing the latest version of Termius to see if the performance issues have been fixed, but they have not. Instead, I'm using an installation of mate-terminal on Ubuntu for WSL combined with the X410 server. It's much more clunky to set up and use, but performance is great.
I expect that with the introduction of Windows Terminal, Termius will lose ground if it doesn't improve.
I completely agree that the desktop app performance must be better. We have been gradually migrating from Angular to React under the hood, so having both frameworks slowed down the app. We are going to be done with migration soon, and we are testing WebGL rendering to speed it up even more.
Maybe an agent that just syncs would be a better option (for desktop), so users can keep using their preferred terminal.
Interesting that it is a YC startup.
Interesting that it is a YC startup.
You can use Termius CLI that syncs the data to your machine and enable working with it in the terminal https://docs.termius.com/termius-cli/termius-cli
Hm, seems like it stores SSH key passwords in plain text?
https://github.com/Crystalnix/termius-cli/issues/132
Any comment on that?
https://github.com/Crystalnix/termius-cli/issues/132
Any comment on that?
Yes, that is user's home directory, e.g., SSH keys in ~/.ssh are also plain text.
Not their passwords, tho. I am not trying to be difficult here, just trying to understand the reasoning behind leaving the passwords stored in plain text.
We found no way to store password somehow else as Keychains are platform specific, but we plan to add Keychain support in the future.
If you used ‘platform specific’ built-in secrets sync you’d be done... but then how would you justify charging for the built in sync? So I see your conundrum.
> …SSH keys in ~/.ssh are also plain text.
What? Mine aren't, nor have they ever been…
If you are storing ssh private keys on disk without a password you are doing something wrong.
What? Mine aren't, nor have they ever been…
If you are storing ssh private keys on disk without a password you are doing something wrong.
If someone can read the files in .ssh, chances are they can also add an alias to the ssh command that steals your passphrase. As for the "stolen laptop" scenario, whole disk encryption is preferable.
I didn't know this existed, thanks,
My dot files are valuable to me, and I have struggled with a number of different systems for managing them across devices. I feel less attached to the terminal emulator itself, and switch peridocially as different programs interact weirdly with different terminals. Especially on WSL.
Secure effective syncing would give me the valuable thing, while still having the freedom to bounce around terminals.
For context, I currently use termius on ipad, but use termux on android and flavor of the week on desktop, currently WSLtty. I have used the pro version of termius in the past, but do not currently.
Secure effective syncing would give me the valuable thing, while still having the freedom to bounce around terminals.
For context, I currently use termius on ipad, but use termux on android and flavor of the week on desktop, currently WSLtty. I have used the pro version of termius in the past, but do not currently.
I've used Server Auditor/Terminus for years. Saved my butt once when I was on vacation and my docker containers were bouncing one-by-one. I didn't have my laptop but I pulled over to have my wife drive while I sat in the passenger seat with Terminus debugging the issue and deploying a fix from my iPhone. That's pretty empowering. And supporting Mosh for free is a huge plus!
I had no idea Terminus had a desktop app. I'm definitely going to give it a try. Thanks for all you do!
I had no idea Terminus had a desktop app. I'm definitely going to give it a try. Thanks for all you do!
That's amazing that you remember using it under the old name Server Auditor. We realised it was not the best name for a product as it has this negative audit flavour. "OK", we thought and iterated on the name resulting in Termius. This time people (and even Google) started to confuse it with Terminus. "Jesus", we thought and worked on making Google understand it right. It worked with Google, but people still seem to like Terminus more. Now we're thinking to either fix people's perception or come up with a new name. How do you like the name, btw?
I read your entire post word for word and read it as Terminus each time, not realizing I had it wrong until your comment.
Perhaps Termius is a fighting a bit much against the flow of "terminal"? FWIW terminus is also a word frequently used on transit ("Terminus station"), which is kind of cute.
Perhaps Termius is a fighting a bit much against the flow of "terminal"? FWIW terminus is also a word frequently used on transit ("Terminus station"), which is kind of cute.
I apologize! I've always called it Terminus... I only just now realized that's not how it's spelled. I honestly mean no offense. I've just always read it as Terminus. Termius isn't a bad name, I just read it as Terminus. Huh. Now I feel bad, because people constantly mispronounce my company's name and I have to correct them.
Not GP, but I did misread the submission title as ...Terminus... Seems more natural, for whatever reason, to me at least.
Is the problem that it's an existing trademark, or just that it's annoying to change again?
It probably doesn't matter if I misread it, search engines will take care of it as if a typo? (Same applies to anyone accurately searching for the name I misleading recommend them, too.)
Is the problem that it's an existing trademark, or just that it's annoying to change again?
It probably doesn't matter if I misread it, search engines will take care of it as if a typo? (Same applies to anyone accurately searching for the name I misleading recommend them, too.)
Thanks! Yes, that's a bit annoying to change it again and communicate (and, possibly, confuse users even more). Agree, the search engines suggest Termius as a fix now, so we'll probably leave it as is.
I have to say, I don't like the name and confused it just like the other people.
But, perhaps you could do something with the capitalization of the name to make it more obvious:
"termiUS"
You could accentuate that effect with using a larger font for the last two letters.
Seems like one of the benefits is synchronization, so emphasizing US fits. And then you don't lose your hard fought Google ranking.
But, in any case, it's a great product and good luck!
But, perhaps you could do something with the capitalization of the name to make it more obvious:
"termiUS"
You could accentuate that effect with using a larger font for the last two letters.
Seems like one of the benefits is synchronization, so emphasizing US fits. And then you don't lose your hard fought Google ranking.
But, in any case, it's a great product and good luck!
Good point, we have another domain termi.us so we might alter the name just with a dot.
I also read the whole post as terminus until I saw your post here
I read the headline name as Terminus, as I guess 99% of others did as well. When I started reading the description I realized it’s Termius, and thought that’s an odd name that most people are never going to get unless they’re reminded of the spelling/pronunciation a few times. In my view, this is a poorer choice of name and branding. I don’t think you’ll ever see the day when everyone you encounter gets the name correctly on the first attempt.
Until this comment, in every usage of the name from headline to dozens of comments, I only saw “Terminus”.
Human brains are proven to error correct misspellings on the fly, and you are getting told by everyone your name is error corrected to something you’re saying it’s not. That’s a big deal.
Human brains are proven to error correct misspellings on the fly, and you are getting told by everyone your name is error corrected to something you’re saying it’s not. That’s a big deal.
After creating an account and installing the app I am pleasantly surprised by the app insofar as actually using it to access a remote computer however.
- I have no idea if the premium features listed are inducements to pay for a premium version or if there is no way to use the app at all without paying the monthly fee.
- I don't want to create a calendar event to remember to pay or cancel. I'd infinitely rather have the app affirm that I wont be charged unless I make an affirmative choice to use your app beyond the trial and click pay the first time. This is especially true on mobile where google already has all the info needed to bill my account.
- The UI has no cancel option. I am left with the strong impression that I have to call someone on the phone or email to cancel at which point someone may or not bother to cancel the account or hey just keep billing me for no reason. I'm sure your are more conscientious and professional about that but I've seen erroneous behavior from otherwise great people.
In brief I'd like to see clarity as to if the subscription is required to use the app, an affirmative step prior to billing my account, and a way to cancel in app or on the web page. Thanks for sharing your work.
- I have no idea if the premium features listed are inducements to pay for a premium version or if there is no way to use the app at all without paying the monthly fee.
- I don't want to create a calendar event to remember to pay or cancel. I'd infinitely rather have the app affirm that I wont be charged unless I make an affirmative choice to use your app beyond the trial and click pay the first time. This is especially true on mobile where google already has all the info needed to bill my account.
- The UI has no cancel option. I am left with the strong impression that I have to call someone on the phone or email to cancel at which point someone may or not bother to cancel the account or hey just keep billing me for no reason. I'm sure your are more conscientious and professional about that but I've seen erroneous behavior from otherwise great people.
In brief I'd like to see clarity as to if the subscription is required to use the app, an affirmative step prior to billing my account, and a way to cancel in app or on the web page. Thanks for sharing your work.
Thanks for your feedback.
After the trial ends you won't be charged. We don't use iOS or Android native mechanisms to provide trial functionality. Once your trial is ended you can switch to basic version with a few limitations or you can explicitly buy the subscription - no hidden charges.
We also have a web dashboard where you can manage your account.
After the trial ends you won't be charged. We don't use iOS or Android native mechanisms to provide trial functionality. Once your trial is ended you can switch to basic version with a few limitations or you can explicitly buy the subscription - no hidden charges.
We also have a web dashboard where you can manage your account.
Thanks for the detailed post! I'm usually wary of using close-source programs for sensitive tasks such as connecting to all my remote servers with SSH.
I haven't found any details on the libraries you use, especially for cryptography, nor the steps you have taken to secure your software. Where can we find more info?
I haven't found any details on the libraries you use, especially for cryptography, nor the steps you have taken to secure your software. Where can we find more info?
Totally understand. As Termius turned from a pet project to our main focus we made security transparency our immediate objective. We are working on the detailed documentation on cryptography, SOC2, and periodic security tests done by 3rd party security professionals.
However, we have addressed the most sensitive part of the product -- the approach we use to store and sync hosts, passwords and keys: https://docs.termius.com/termius-handbook/synchronization#ho.... Syncing of keys/passwords can be turned off when your policy does not allow it to be stored elsewhere. We also support 2FA and Yubikey for authentification.
However, we have addressed the most sensitive part of the product -- the approach we use to store and sync hosts, passwords and keys: https://docs.termius.com/termius-handbook/synchronization#ho.... Syncing of keys/passwords can be turned off when your policy does not allow it to be stored elsewhere. We also support 2FA and Yubikey for authentification.
Thanks for this, not the OP but security is also my #1 concern with this type of product. I'm probably not in the target market anyways so maybe you don't need to listen to me but I love it when companies release info on the way they keep my data safe.
One example, before I sign up for a critical vendor, I like to ensure I can set up secure 2fa with no sms recovery (because sms recovery is broken by design)
A security whitepaper of sorts will probably go a long way on this type of product
One example, before I sign up for a critical vendor, I like to ensure I can set up secure 2fa with no sms recovery (because sms recovery is broken by design)
A security whitepaper of sorts will probably go a long way on this type of product
So this is an Electron app that does what JuiceSSH and X-plore do for me on android for free, but with synced configuration and monthly payment.
Sorry, but I don't value not having to copy my SSH configs over to my phone once every blue moon at $4.99/month.
Sorry, but I don't value not having to copy my SSH configs over to my phone once every blue moon at $4.99/month.
You can use it for free, as I have, and it's quite good. The payment is only for syncing, which is not worth it for me, so I don't pay.
According to their Pricing page[1], you require the $5/month subscription to use SFTP. That seems like an odd decision for a company who proudly calls out that they use 'end-to-end encryption' to sync your settings.
[1] https://termius.com/pricing
[1] https://termius.com/pricing
Folks, I honestly genuinely hate to be "that guy", but neither your description above (too long), nor your website really explains why I need your product. I went to the docs page but it's still not telling me what it does exactly, how it works and why I need this? As a Windows/Linux admin/dev/devops guy what's the selling point?
I think you need some diagrams/videos to explain your stuff a bit more. Show me how it works. Show me the road bumps you're smoothing out.
I think you need some diagrams/videos to explain your stuff a bit more. Show me how it works. Show me the road bumps you're smoothing out.
>I went to the docs page but it's still not telling me what it does exactly
First paragraph of their comment:
> Termius is an SSH client that works on desktop and mobile. The big difference with other SSH clients that Termius syncs data across devices using end-to-end encryption.
First paragraph of their comment:
> Termius is an SSH client that works on desktop and mobile. The big difference with other SSH clients that Termius syncs data across devices using end-to-end encryption.
Yeah, I read that....but how? I can already do that with tooling I already have. What's the benefits for me over a bunch of bash and powershell scripts?
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Cloud synced ssh client is what I got from the description
What does this even mean? Is it like cloud based tmux?
Imagine transition from MS Word 98 to Google Docs that is what we did to Putty.
I love using Termius on my 12.9” iPad Pro with the keyboard. It’s a beautiful full screen terminal with extra features that just happen to pop up right when I need them. I’m delighted to see Termius is with YC now!
Feature request: Unlock the ability to use Termius as a swiss army knife for every iOS app - Using the new Shortcuts features released as part of iOS 13, it seems possible (I have not dug 100%) that support could be built to allow Termius to scp files, in a way that allows collaboration with most every iOS app. A specific example:
I take a photo. I hit the Share button. I tap the Termius icon. A list of hosts I have ssh’d to appears (perhaps with a most recent “current working directory” next to each entry). I tap “webhost (public_html)” and whatever photo I sent to the Share button is uploaded via scp. (Replace photo with “arbitrary file” from the Files app)
Feature request: Unlock the ability to use Termius as a swiss army knife for every iOS app - Using the new Shortcuts features released as part of iOS 13, it seems possible (I have not dug 100%) that support could be built to allow Termius to scp files, in a way that allows collaboration with most every iOS app. A specific example:
I take a photo. I hit the Share button. I tap the Termius icon. A list of hosts I have ssh’d to appears (perhaps with a most recent “current working directory” next to each entry). I tap “webhost (public_html)” and whatever photo I sent to the Share button is uploaded via scp. (Replace photo with “arbitrary file” from the Files app)
Excellent suggestions, I discuss them with the dev team. Would you able to share(roman[at]termius.com) your user stories? What for are you using Termius?
Wow, this app saved my butt over a year ago when I ran out of laptop battery while out in the field. It was one of those rare cases where my low expectations did a complete 180 in the first few minutes using the tool.
This is pretty cool - I've used it as an alternative to building a few web dashboards and admin panels for some of my quick-and-dirty past projects.
The combination of Termiums's saved snippets and a short shell/node scripts let me do a lot of monitoring using simple shell scripts rather than having to run a separate web-server hidden behind some auth. Plus, it's still easier to build an interative shell script than an interactive webpage.
The combination of Termiums's saved snippets and a short shell/node scripts let me do a lot of monitoring using simple shell scripts rather than having to run a separate web-server hidden behind some auth. Plus, it's still easier to build an interative shell script than an interactive webpage.
I had Termius installed on my phone for years, and uses it very occasionally in emergency situation when I don't have my notebook around or when wifi is not available. I tried several other apps and eventually settled with Termius and keep it on my iPhone and my iPad for years. I do noticed that there are more intense development in the past six months or so, however all the new development are no longer supports older iPhone/iPad where i had Termius installed. I'm not a system admin, and categorised as one of those casual users, personally I never feel the needs to use Terminus Desktop because even for a casual user to switch from what has been setup on the Desktop to a new app is too much of works, but this might be just me...
I was very surprised to see this is a YC startup - I thought they only invested where there was the possibility of a huge exit?
While this looks interesting, $5/m is a lot for the functionality on offer - for something as "small" as this, I'd personally prefer to pay on a yearly basis, maybe something like $20/y.
I just can't see this delivering big returns, unless of course there is something much bigger on the road map.
While this looks interesting, $5/m is a lot for the functionality on offer - for something as "small" as this, I'd personally prefer to pay on a yearly basis, maybe something like $20/y.
I just can't see this delivering big returns, unless of course there is something much bigger on the road map.
I unfortunately have to concur with the posters feeling irritation at what seems a very unreasonable subscription price.
The most useful feature enabled by the paid subscription, the syncing of data, is something i anyway do on my bastion host/jump host, which is the only point from which the other systems are accessible. All profiles for reaching the systems are there, all my notes are there (encrypted), and it’s set to record all sessions - although not get shipping these logs away to a more protected location.
The only thing missing is the key material, which I will gladly manage manually.
I’m a hobbyist at best, so the subscription is not justified or useful for me (plus I just don’t like subscriptions). I wish you guys had some intermediate product that allowed a one-time contribution through the App Store. Anyway, thanks for such a great app!
I will second this, and add that I generally resist subscriptions from apps that tout syncing as a subscription feature because I'm already paying to sync stuff with Dropbox/iCloud.
If you're looking for a polished mobile SSH client without a subscription model, you might be interested in Blink[1]. It's worth mentioning that in addition to SSH, it also supports Mosh[2] (it's the official iOS client!), a remote access protocol tailored to handle spotty mobile connections. It's also open source[3] and gives you access to several Unix commands offline.
[1] https://www.blink.sh/
[2] https://mosh.org
[3] https://github.com/blinksh/blink
[1] https://www.blink.sh/
[2] https://mosh.org
[3] https://github.com/blinksh/blink
We serve the free version of Termius to hobbyists which is pretty powerful and has no ads. One more benefit that you can rely on it because it is part of a growing startup. Btw, we saw a lot of dead SSH clients in app stores along the way, just because they had no business model, e.g., one-off payment.
What's a "dead" SSH client? If the client works, and if you aren't connecting to untrusted hosts, what's the problem with using it?
Well... thanks again! To be clear, I’m not arguing for you guys to drop the subscription model. Surely it must cover some needs. I’m simply letting you know that a bunch of us want to make a contribution. So something not as full-featured as the subscription product but maybe with another bell or whistle could be a way to implement this. (Personally I don’t need an improvement. It’s already great as it is.)
No offense but your point of being reliable by virtue of being a growing startup is rather laughable.
YC money or not, startups come and go, sometimes going with more of their users’ data than they should. You could have avoided making that point altogether.
YC money or not, startups come and go, sometimes going with more of their users’ data than they should. You could have avoided making that point altogether.
Per version payment is “no business model”?
You do realize Adobe, Microsoft, others, made money fine for 40 years before realizing they could leverage corporate procurement into wildly overpriced (~3x what was already profitable) subscriptions?
You do realize Adobe, Microsoft, others, made money fine for 40 years before realizing they could leverage corporate procurement into wildly overpriced (~3x what was already profitable) subscriptions?
"no business model" e.g. one off payment
and yet Microsoft (worlds most valuable company btw) built an empire selling software.
and yet Microsoft (worlds most valuable company btw) built an empire selling software.
And yet here we are in 2019 and they're moving to subscription model
Because now they can rope-a-dope the market segment who don’t need to upgrade every year, usually only with a new computer.
It’s rent seeking of a sort. No additional needed value delivered, artificial change to extract more monies.
It’s rent seeking of a sort. No additional needed value delivered, artificial change to extract more monies.
Microsoft was not built on $5 one off software.
How is this a billion $ business? I've been rejected by YC a number of times, even though we have lots of docker downloads. So, I am just curious, what worked in this case.
Our pitch to Y Combinator: The number of network engineers and sysadmins is around the number of software developers. Sysadmins use SSH all day long while maintaining infrastructure for SMB and enterprise. Termius makes those admins more productive, reduce the amount of errors, and enables collaboration(leads to easier onboarding for new team members). The additional point is that no significant innovation has been done in this space(command line&SSH) for the last twenty years.
I liken it to drinking water.
No “significant” innovation has been done to H2O in a while. That hasn’t stopped plenty of companies getting built on selling what most people with disposable income can also get in high quality for free.
And much like already paying for iCloud, Google Drive, One Drive, or Dropbox, most companies that “subscribe” extra for water delivery to the water cooler in the break room, already pay a water bill.
No “significant” innovation has been done to H2O in a while. That hasn’t stopped plenty of companies getting built on selling what most people with disposable income can also get in high quality for free.
And much like already paying for iCloud, Google Drive, One Drive, or Dropbox, most companies that “subscribe” extra for water delivery to the water cooler in the break room, already pay a water bill.
Hello, I am a new iPad user and this is one of the first iOS apps I ever downloaded along with iSH on testflight(the alpine linux distrobution for ipad). I have 2 questions if you don't mind:
1) I love iSH because I dont need to be on the internet or connected to any other devices to get a local shell. Is there interest in the project in creating a local shell using busybox or the like built into the app? As awesome as iSH is, unfortunately things like F-keys and general user interface still need a bit of work.
2) Will you folks support mouse integration on iOS 13?
Thanks for the great app. I am rooting for you folks.
1) I love iSH because I dont need to be on the internet or connected to any other devices to get a local shell. Is there interest in the project in creating a local shell using busybox or the like built into the app? As awesome as iSH is, unfortunately things like F-keys and general user interface still need a bit of work.
2) Will you folks support mouse integration on iOS 13?
Thanks for the great app. I am rooting for you folks.
I was about to recommend iSH too so here is the link [1] for anyone interested. The major advantage of iSH, besides being free, is its ability to function offline. Many other SSH clients where just proxies to a server which wasn’t useful on air-gapped or NAT networks.
[1]: https://ish.app/
[1]: https://ish.app/
1) Termius supports local terminal on Android and Desktop as the OSes allow it. We are constantly looking for ways to add similar functionality on iOS but can't see an appropriate way.
2) iOS 13 brings a lot of benefits for Termius users, including mouse support and on-top keyboard. We will add mouse support, but cannot give ETA yet.
2) iOS 13 brings a lot of benefits for Termius users, including mouse support and on-top keyboard. We will add mouse support, but cannot give ETA yet.
I am a network engineer and I had been using Termius in the MAC for about an year now.But whenever if there is a need for log collection, I have to use MAC Terminal. Because I cannot scroll with the mouse and select the text. This is a big disadvantage for me. (I don't want to press cmd+A and do a select-all)
Also it will be better if the list of connections (and folders) are displayed readily accessible always in the left or on the top.
I have not used the app in mobile. Because I am skeptical to store the hostnames and IPs (and definitely passwords) on a third party application.
Also it will be better if the list of connections (and folders) are displayed readily accessible always in the left or on the top.
I have not used the app in mobile. Because I am skeptical to store the hostnames and IPs (and definitely passwords) on a third party application.
We are working on session logs at the moment; we know that it's a pain to use Control-A.
Is there anything we can do to make you comfortable to use the sync? For example, we already encrypt all the data using AES-256. We are going to get SEC2. Anything else?
187MB for an installer! What extra do we get instead of Putty/Other SSH Clients to justify this humongous size!? Can't size be slimmed down!
Electron apps are pretty fat in general, but the Internet speed in most places got pretty fast anyway.
Thank you for the quick response. Also, Is it possible to strip down the memory usage as well? Because for 5 ssh sessions the memory usage along with core app was standing at 300M+. https://imgur.com/a/muh1zTs
Thanks for noticing. Better memory management and performance improvements are definitely the areas we'll be focusing on.
I've been a longtime user, I love it!
Its a must have on all of my devices.
Thank you, Tom, really appreciate your support!
Product and website look great. Thanks for sharing. Though, can I point out a small discrepancy on your landing page? You claim over 24,000 engineers use the product, then in the same section you claim over 300,000. It makes me scratch my head and honestly I think you lose a bit of credibility. And on the pricing page you claim 10,000. Which is it?
The pricing page seems to be wrong either way, but the main page claims 300,000 total users with 24,000 using it daily.
I didn't catch the daily number. It just seems like they should pick the bigger one and stick with it so users don't need to parse.
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Excited you guys made it into YC! I've been in a Termius subscriber since 2016 (please don't kill early adopter subs!) and it's been worth every penny. Also used ServerAuditor and paid for that too. :)
I have transitioned to using the desktop app almost entirely (altho it's annoying my mosh windows don't just stay connected all the time like they used too) and can't wait for React/WebGL to speed it up.
It would be awesome if there was a CLI app I could run that I could send a push notification that I could click on from my phone and it launches termius with the appropriate host. Currently I'm using pushover, but when I get something I have to flip into termius and manually connect.
I'll post more of my ideas into uservoice. :) Thanks for being prompt on responding to emails too, I can't wait until the new rendering engine (react I assume) doesn't suck!
I have transitioned to using the desktop app almost entirely (altho it's annoying my mosh windows don't just stay connected all the time like they used too) and can't wait for React/WebGL to speed it up.
It would be awesome if there was a CLI app I could run that I could send a push notification that I could click on from my phone and it launches termius with the appropriate host. Currently I'm using pushover, but when I get something I have to flip into termius and manually connect.
I'll post more of my ideas into uservoice. :) Thanks for being prompt on responding to emails too, I can't wait until the new rendering engine (react I assume) doesn't suck!
Thanks for your kind words! I've shared them with the team!
We are designing the push notifications from a server at the moment.
We are designing the push notifications from a server at the moment.
Termius is simply amazing! I use it regularly from my iPhone, and it’s the only terminal app that feels natural using: you can double tab to have tab completion, swipe to go up and down, etc...
Since I can manage cluster jobs as I was at my desktop, Termius really increased my productivity.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Since I can manage cluster jobs as I was at my desktop, Termius really increased my productivity.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Thanks for kind words! It keeps us going!
Small thing I noticed on the pricing page, 'annualy' is misspelled - otherwise looks very nice.
fixed, thanks!
My main usecase that I use Termius for is that I read mail in mutt on my self hosted mail server. I’ve been hosting my own mail for many years now. Having access to my mail server from my iPhone is nice.
Thank you for making Termius and for the effort that you have put into it thus far.
Thank you for making Termius and for the effort that you have put into it thus far.
Monthly payments for an SSH client? Like, seriously ?
I do not have very valuable feedback but I've used Termius on the iPad twice when my laptop wasn't available (both emergencies). I haven't found the need to look elsewhere for an iOS SSH client. Great work and good luck!
Is the "Termius Dark" color scheme saved anywhere? I like to use the same color scheme as my terminal when I am using vim.
PS: Love Termius, by the way! We will be sure to switch to the team plan once the sharing feature launch.
PS: Love Termius, by the way! We will be sure to switch to the team plan once the sharing feature launch.
We are about to onboard the first team for a closed beta of Group Sharing! Let me know roman[at]termius.com if you want to test the beta as well.
Oh, great, will do! Any comment on Vim, though? And on a second note, any plans to support true colours?
True Colors now in beta https://termius.com/beta-program. Could you elaborate a bit more on the idea with VIM? We are planning to add custom themes in the future but I'm not sure if it will help with your request about VIM.
I also have been using Terminus from iOS to get to servers I manage. It's been great, thanks. They keyboard will always be difficult but you solved cursor keys and tab. How are you going monetize?
We sell a subscription for premium features that are available on all devices and make engineers more productive. Our next step is a plan for teams where we want to enable collaboration, e.g., sysadmins quite often maintain the same infrastructure so they should have one source of truth of the current state(what servers do we have? what are the recent changes?).
I wish you guys luck! Engineers may be a hard group to sell this to, given how great free desktop terminal emulators are, and how easy it is for an engineer to engineer tooling to generate ~/.ssh/config files from existing sources of truth.
From the research I've done when I was considering using my iPad as a terminal, Termius seemed like hands down the best iOS terminal app. However on macOS, you're going to have to compete with the likes of iTerm2, Kitty, and Alacritty, all very fine open source programs innovating in the terminal space.
From the research I've done when I was considering using my iPad as a terminal, Termius seemed like hands down the best iOS terminal app. However on macOS, you're going to have to compete with the likes of iTerm2, Kitty, and Alacritty, all very fine open source programs innovating in the terminal space.
I never used Termius but I used similar SSH apps on my iPhone which did the trick for me.
What I'm curious about is, what is Termius monetization strategy? From what I can tell, it's 100% free?
What I'm curious about is, what is Termius monetization strategy? From what I can tell, it's 100% free?
Termius uses a freemium model. You can get most of the functionality for free, the premium and teams plans offer some professional features such as cross-platform sync, host sharing, sftp, agent forwarding etc.
You want me to pay you more per month than I pay to sync all my mail, files, photos etc, for a worse terminal than comes with my OS for free?
How is there a market for this?
How is there a market for this?
Nice read about Termius' background.
I like Termius, it's by far the best ssh client on iOS. I just wonder if this syncing is really a crucial feature.
I have one main remote dev server which is the gateway to all other remote servers. I use most of the time the main server and haven't had the need to sync anything. Installing keys on ssh clients is indeed a bit tedious but you do it only once.
Or do I miss anything?
I like Termius, it's by far the best ssh client on iOS. I just wonder if this syncing is really a crucial feature.
I have one main remote dev server which is the gateway to all other remote servers. I use most of the time the main server and haven't had the need to sync anything. Installing keys on ssh clients is indeed a bit tedious but you do it only once.
Or do I miss anything?
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Great app but the ability to remap caps lock to Esc on an external iPad keyboard is why I went with Blink shell instead.
We are working on Remapping of CapsLock for iOS. Stay tuned.
Hello, I have a phone with a big screen. I use connectbot and tmux. My single issue is that it is almost unusable when I do not have my bluetooth keyboard with me. Hacker's keyboard is not very pleasant and does not interact well with connectbot (the virtual keyboard hides half of the screen).
I will try Termius.
I will try Termius.
Except for the _requirement_ of a paying monthly subscription to use certain features I truly like Termius.
Looks very interesting. Is it possible to install the Linux version without using snap? Thanks.
We are now adding .deb package. Currently in beta, but should be released pretty soon. You could try it here https://www.termius.com/beta-program
Thanks! It would be great if you can also release a .rpm for other distros as well. I'm using Fedora 30 and Snap is generating some issues, that's why I rather install it using a package.
I’ve used Termius on my phone. It’s phenomenal. Didn’t realize there was a desktop version too.
Can you enable the SSH client on mobile to supports yubikey for GPG-agent authentication?
Not to be confused with the Terminus
> a highly configurable terminal emulator for Windows, macOS and Linux
https://github.com/Eugeny/terminus
> a highly configurable terminal emulator for Windows, macOS and Linux
https://github.com/Eugeny/terminus
Not sure if I missed something, but I can't add fonts. Is that not possible?
We don't support it at the moment. Adding fonts is on the roadmap, but, unfortunately, I cannot give an ETA for this. What fonts would you like to have, we may be able to add those to Termius?
Not the OP, but I want PragmataPro but it's a commercial font (so I need custom font support for that), so at least having Iosevka with ligatures support would be nice :-)
I have been trying Termius on and off for a year (I subscribed), but still couldn't switch away from Blink due to lack of custom font support and inability to map Capslock to Ctrl (but I solved this by using HHKB with my iPad, which has Ctrl in Caps position)
Additionally, please, please consider adding traditional TOTP. I don't like Authy, because its initial authentication requires SMS, and the fact that Authy acts as middle-man between me and the service (e.g. to delete non-TOTP Authy token, the service need to call Authy API to disconnect the user before _I_ can remove the token from my phone)
I have been trying Termius on and off for a year (I subscribed), but still couldn't switch away from Blink due to lack of custom font support and inability to map Capslock to Ctrl (but I solved this by using HHKB with my iPad, which has Ctrl in Caps position)
Additionally, please, please consider adding traditional TOTP. I don't like Authy, because its initial authentication requires SMS, and the fact that Authy acts as middle-man between me and the service (e.g. to delete non-TOTP Authy token, the service need to call Authy API to disconnect the user before _I_ can remove the token from my phone)
This is a bit of an edge case, but I want to be able to use an ANSI friendly font for Telnet BBS'. At the moment, the supported fonts just render garbage. It would be ideal for me to select my own font as I find it unlikely you will add 'unscii 16-full'.
Actually, UNSCII is also what I’m looking for in Termius (for drawille).
> What fonts would you like to have
Hack https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/
Hack https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/
Blimey, why is the Wozniak quote buried so low!
We were psyched to get this quote from Steve, but the product is a bit complex to grasp, so we devoted the whole landing page to communicate the value.
I already have a working SSH app on my phone. I use it once in a blue moon because it's all cloud now.
Man, its a desperate state of affairs when I have to access my terminal on my phone...
It could be worse. I semi-regularly use Microsoft Remote Desktop from my phone because my workplace's security policy doesn't allow ssh from off-network....
I've used the mobile app, it's simply amazing!!
SaaS was a mistake..
Thank you for creating one of the essential apps for mobile devices to be able to use ssh.
I'd like to see Termius go beyond SSH. Add in scp / rsync support for file transfers. Add VNC / RDP support for virtual desktops. Or at least X11 forwarding.
I'd like to see Termius go beyond SSH. Add in scp / rsync support for file transfers. Add VNC / RDP support for virtual desktops. Or at least X11 forwarding.
Termius already has file management capabilities through SFTP and Amazon S3(Android only). We will eventually add X11/RDP/VNC, but now we are focused on the command line UX to a remote system.
Using a terminal on a mobile is a horrible experience. Smart phone UI's are the antithesis of CLI
DevOps, sysadmins, and network engineers benefit from using Termius because they can keep all the information for managing their servers in one secure place, e.g., snippets, connection strings, history, etc. Our product vision is to rebuild the command line experience around an engineer, not around the mainframe where it all started. For example, Termius will help engineers to safely keep information about their servers, shell commands, and terminal logs. This information will be accessible from any device and used to improve productivity, e.g., autocomplete commands in the terminal.
Dmitry and I met when we both got our first job in a small game development studio in Omsk, Siberia. Actually, at that time, it was an advertising agency with an ambition to become a game development studio. We were students, and it was a perfect place to learn on our own a ton about software development in C++. After four years of hard work, we managed to release a 3D game for PC with real-time physics. We involved kids in testing the gameplay, which allowed us to watch other people using our software. It was a life-changing experience when we saw how software could drive emotion, especially with kids and games. After that, we got hooked on building products that people love.
After the commercial failure of the game studio, we went to work for an outsourcing company. We were working on some enterprise software, which was not a lot of fun. Therefore we were working after-hours and weekends on many ideas. After two years, we decided to start our own outsourcing company. We planned to use outsourcing company resources to develop our first product.
Roman started Termius as his pet project at our outsourcing company about seven years ago. Roman needed a way to start a C++ project compilation from my iPhone. The project used a lot of Boost::Spirit and a complete rebuild could take around 15 mins. This time was ideal for a cup of coffee with colleagues or a short bout of office-chair fencing. However, some compilation or linking errors could come up, so he needed to keep an eye on it. It was hard to justify paying $10 for iSSH for such a minor use case. Free SSH clients in the App Store were ugly or had ads in the terminal window. Roman thought that a basic SSH client with the terminal must be available on all platforms for free and ad-free. SSH is as universal as email, and most operating systems have at least one basic and free email client. That is how it is all started.
First, we needed to solve a couple of UX challenges. SSH client requires terminal emulator support to render the output. Also, the mobile keyboard doesn’t have some necessary keys like Fn, Ctrl, Alt, and Tab. Besides, these keys must support sequences(Ctrl-Alt-x or Ctrl-x Ctrl-f) to support Emacs. That was our first UX challenge. Initially, we developed Ctrl and Alt in the shape of a lollipop pinned to the sides of the terminal window. Those were special buttons with two states: tap for single usage(for Ctrl-C) and drag to the center(locked state) for combinations like Ctrl-Alt-x. We have changed the design of the terminal window three times to make it easier to grasp. We ended up emulating a lot of what native OS does because users are familiar with those patterns already. In the recent versions, all the additional keys are grouped and sit on top of the system keyboard. Ctrl and Alt work a lot like Shift(double tap to lock) which was introduced later by Apple.
Once we released Termius (at that time was called Server Auditor) for iOS and Android, we started to get quite a lot of feedback on the missing features and bugs. Frequently this feedback was in the form of one-star review with a typical comment like “Will switch to 5 stars if you add blah”. In some cases, we had no idea why users needed those features and had no way to ask about it. App Store did not provide the response feature at that time. Therefore we integrated the feedback channel and the feature voting straight into the app(UserVoice). After that, we were able to communicate with our users a lot easier. This tight feedback loop kept us engaged and motivated to keep working on the product. We also got to hear stories from users who used Termius in different life situations. Some users fixed a server being on holiday or saved their bacon because they could continue working from their iPhone. One of the fascinating cases was a story from one visually impaired user who was managing a server on his iPad using Termius and VoiceOver.
Initially, we released Termius as a free app for iOS and Android. After a year of continuous work, the apps got to the first places in both app stores when you search for SSH. Organic search traffic combined with good ratings drove pretty good daily downloads numbers. We realized that we are building something that people want.
When we were researching user churn, we realized that we could solve even a bigger problem. Some users stopped using the mobile app because it was daunting to keep the information up to date on the mobile device. They downloaded Termius to use when they are away from their desk. However, when an emergency happened, they didn’t have all the things to deal with it, e.g., connection strings, keys, commands to restart a service, you name it. As a result, a standalone mobile SSH client was useless for them, and they had to run to their desk. We realized that if we add a desktop app and secure sync with end-to-end encryption, then all the data would stay fresh on all devices and users would be able to rely on the mobile apps.
Moreover, having sync enabled us to rethink the whole command line user experience. For example, Termius could accumulate all the commands when you work in a shell and use them for auto-complete an all devices. Another example, that engineers encouraged to invest a bit of their time to keep the information in order because it stays with them all the time. Termius supports groups and tags to maintain a list of hundreds of hosts.
What is next? Tens of millions of engineers use the command line to interact with remote computer systems. Many of them maintain infrastructure together. Our next step is to bring more collaboration to sysadmin and DevOps teams based on their interaction with the command line. Things like terminal logs, recently executed commands and lists of currently runnings systems could be shared among all team members with Termius. That would make the whole process more transparent and new member on-boarding a lot easier. The similar transition that Google Docs brought to collective document creation.
HackerNews community probably has the highest concentration of engineers who might use Termius daily. Therefore we would love to hear your feedback!