[HN Gopher] Show HN: Echo, an iOS SSH+mosh client built on Ghostty
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Echo, an iOS SSH+mosh client built on Ghostty
Author : sgottit
Score : 101 points
Date : 2026-02-18 18:58 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (replay.software)
(TXT) w3m dump (replay.software)
| mr_o47 wrote:
| I definitely love the UI. Also amazing Job you did
| jlundberg wrote:
| Interesting project!
|
| Two problems for me:
|
| - I want my iPhone terminal to be built for use w/ external
| keyboard.
|
| - While I really like pay-once a use-often app like a terminal
| you really want to try before you buy. But maybe Apples general
| refund-if-not-satisfied is still a thing and enough?
| sgottit wrote:
| Echo works great with an external keyboard fwiw. My daily
| driver is using it with the iPad and keyboard
| srmatto wrote:
| It says "full hardware keyboard support" in the blog post, but
| its not a headline so its easy to miss.
| dmcc7897 wrote:
| This is really, really nice. Thanks for sharing!
| laksjhdlka wrote:
| How do I add other keys to the little virtual keyboard? Inability
| to easily type ` is pretty tough. Looks beautiful though.
| sgottit wrote:
| Thanks! We're working on an update to the keyboard toolbar
| right now to support a customisable set of keys
| kristofferR wrote:
| Combos too please, like shift-tab for Claude Code.
| iririririr wrote:
| Nice. Hopefully it will evolve into something as good as termux
| on android. It won't ever be as good, because ios is a toy with
| rubber on all corners.
|
| Love that they copied the bar above the keyboard. Even with
| android custom keyboard that was a great feature, on IOS that's
| essential.
|
| oh, it's closed source. and lazygit (the least terminal based of
| all cli tools) being their inapiration doesn't inspire much
| confidence in long term :(
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I've been using blink on ios for years it's opensource and
| works pretty well for me.
|
| I actually kinda like working on my ipad this way (ssh'd into
| dev box) it's not really distracting somehow and not having
| full jetbrains etc makes for a different kinda session.
|
| _shrug_
| kastden wrote:
| In the App Store it says it requires iOS 26.2 or later. Any
| reason it couldn't be made to run on iOS 18? I only ask because I
| don't wanna upgrade to Liquid Glass!
| torstenvl wrote:
| The requirements for this seem strange. What is it about iOS 26.2
| that makes it a minimum requirement?
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| I'll spend the $3 to try it out.
|
| Any real different than Terminus? That seemed to be the latest
| and greatest last I was shopping for an iOS SSH client.
|
| Also, maybe just because its new (I dont realy know how App Store
| search works) but searching "Echo" and "Echo SSH" returned way
| too many Amazon/Alexa related apps, and then many other terminals
| before yours.
| sgottit wrote:
| Terminus was a sledgehammer for the small, neat little app I
| wanted to build (though I'm sure it's great). Plus a big driver
| was the ability to use Ghostty's engine. I'm not familiar with
| what Terminus use under the hood.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| I generally use iSH[1] for my iPhone to Linux needs.
| Specifically, I like it because it's a standard Linux
| distribution with OpenSSH. Meaning all the things work like sftp,
| ssh, tunnels, and local clients like `mysql` tunneled through ssh
|
| [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243
| varenc wrote:
| I use iSH too and love that I have all my standard CLI tools
| available, or can just install ones I want.
|
| But using the ssh client in iSH to interact with TUI interfaces
| is a less than optimal experience. Many nice UI affordances
| that something like Terminus provides are lacking. Like using
| swipes as input, key management tools, or using location
| monitoring as a trick to keep it running in the background.
| Definitely excited to check out this new Echo client.
| ssgodderidge wrote:
| I also love iSH. However, I haven't been able to run agents
| directly from my phone on it like I would hope.
|
| I spent a few hours trying to get GitHub Copilot CLI or Claude
| Code installed only to discover that the version of Node is
| pegged to 14, which prohibits installation of several of these
| tools via NPM.
|
| Has anyone had success with this? I'd love to see the packages
| updated to support later versions
| setopt wrote:
| Purchased. Love the app.
|
| A few requests:
|
| - In Secure Shellfish, I love that if iOS suspends it and I
| reopen it, it just does `tmux attach` on the last host
| automatically. Echo has the "startup command", but seems I still
| have to manually click on the last host I used to resume. Perhaps
| we can get an option to auto-reconnect to the last host? (My work
| firewall blocks Mosh so I need to do the ssh-and-attach dance
| when iOS kills the app.)
|
| - When using Emacs on iOS, it would be great to be able to save
| keychords like `C-x C-s` or `M-x` somewhere, for example on the
| virtual keyboard top row. (I would be ecstatic if I could use the
| volume buttons as Ctrl and Meta, but I guess that's more
| complicated to do.)
| sgottit wrote:
| thanks that's great feedback. currently thinking and working
| right now on the best way to handle customisability of the
| keyboard (without making it a chore to configure or a
| horrendous ui). hadn't considered "chords" yet but it's one
| we'll consider as we approach this
| ktm5j wrote:
| Any chance you'd consider an android port?
| JLO64 wrote:
| This is pretty awesome, and at a $3 price point is an auto
| purchase for me!
|
| As someone else said though, hardware keyboard support on iOS is
| something that I would really want as I regularly use ShellFish
| on my iPhone with a USB-C keyboard.
|
| Something that actually matters more to me is font support. I use
| nerd fonts for my zsh prompt, so an app that doesn't support them
| is a hard sell. Are custom fonts supported, or at least on the
| roadmap?
|
| Additionally I just want clarification on your business model.
| Once I pay now I will get all future updates for free or might I
| have to pay for them?
|
| EDIT: (Since Ghostty supports it) Does this also support showing
| images in the terminal via the kitty protocol?
| asadm wrote:
| Amazing! Insta-buy for me.
| stuxf wrote:
| finally I can move off termius, this looks great!
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| Very nice! But, looking at the keyboard, there is a bunch of
| wasted space above the top row of keys that I just don't
| understand how Apple put there. When you're working with tiny
| text in a terminal every little bit of space matters and on tiny
| phone screens it's crazy they would do something so strange. Does
| anyone know if it's possible to remove that top bit of wasted
| space from the keyboard on iOS 26?
| gu009 wrote:
| Would be great to see some more ssh key features from Termius
| implemented: generating new keys, including keys that are stored
| in the Secure Enclave, exporting keys to hosts directly via the
| app
| xqb64 wrote:
| Does this work with a Yubikey?
| sprak wrote:
| Looks nice. Does anyone know if there is something similar for
| Android?
| tills13 wrote:
| Termux is the OG.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| Nice job! Purchased. Would love to be able to make the font much
| smaller. It says "10pt font" but it is still larger than I need
| and would love the extra real estate.
| sgottit wrote:
| You can pinch to zoom in and out beyond the defaults and get a
| lot of real estate that way. Thanks for the kind words!
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| thanks - follow up, it logs out every time my phone screen
| locks - is there any way to make it not log out?
| bonyt wrote:
| Neat, it's staggering that there hasn't been a good non-
| subscription option for a simple utility like this for iOS. I've
| used Termius for a while, but it pushes a subscription and AI
| features pretty hard.
|
| I think this really needs the ability to generate SSH keys on the
| secure enclave, like Secretive[1] does on macOS.
|
| [1] https://secretive.dev/
| sgottit wrote:
| Thanks! Agree - Secure Enclave support with key generation has
| been a common feature request. Definitely on the roadmap.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Please add fido auth for ssh. My pipe dream is this + nixpkgs
| distribution for wasm or something.
| layer8 wrote:
| There used to be a couple non-subscription ones. I'm still
| using Prompt 2, but of course it's been superseded by the
| subscription-bound Prompt 3 on the App Store for some time now.
| a-l-e-c wrote:
| +1 in the same boat here. Only subscription I'm paying now is
| Signal backups, I simply can't justify the one-time price of
| 100$ they charge for Prompt 3
| layer8 wrote:
| Yes, something like $20 would be reasonable, but at $100
| I'll stick with the limitations of the old version.
| radicality wrote:
| I'm happy with ShellFish, $30 one-time (subscription option
| too). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ssh-client-secure-
| shellfish/id...
| mmcclure wrote:
| Very cool! I've been using Termius for a while. Overall positive,
| but my one complaint is that the interactions can be pretty
| tedious using it with TUIs like Claude Code. I like the gesture-
| based movement, excited to try that in practice.
|
| I use Tailscale SSH, so one very small bit of feedback is that it
| took me a second to realize I just needed to put a dummy password
| in to actually get to the connection.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Some brutal reviews on the iOS app store suggesting RSA keys do
| not work?
| hoherd wrote:
| Well, the app description does say "modern". No modern app
| should be using rsa keys. ssh-rsa was deprecated in OpenSSH in
| 2020 https://www.openssh.org/txt/release-8.2
| commandersaki wrote:
| Yet it supports password based auth which is less secure.
| lilyball wrote:
| This sounds nice, but since you're talking about using it with
| agents, to what extent was AI used to actually write the app?
| joshstrange wrote:
| I'd love the ability to run a command on connection to a server
| (like "tmux attach -t main") and also a way to create my own
| buttons in the UI to send things like tmux commands (next window,
| create window, etc) to make it easier use from my phone.
|
| Also, and I'll probably just buy it to test, but how does it
| handle copy/paste and STT? Especially with coding agents I use
| speech-to-text to explain something and that's always hit or miss
| in terminal apps on iOS in my experience.
| jervant wrote:
| It looks like you set a startup command in the "Advanced
| Configuration" menu for the host
| joshstrange wrote:
| Nice, thanks for letting me know!
| deepspace wrote:
| For STT I use the WisprFlow app/keyboard. It is much more
| accurate than the built in functionality in iOS, in my
| experience.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Oh, very interesting, I wasn't even aware this was a thing. I
| mean, I guess it's obvious but after trying third-party
| keyboards years ago (and finding them too buggy) I never
| really kept up with them. I'll check that out!
| hk1337 wrote:
| It looks really nice and clean. It's an SSH app though, right, so
| I would need a server to remote into?
| lambdas wrote:
| Something running an SSH server service, yes.
|
| A decade plus ago, you could ssh into localhost on iOS, but
| that got nipped in the bud with sandboxing.
| a-l-e-c wrote:
| How does it compare to the (extremely expensive) Prompt 3 app?
| I'm still stuck with Prompt 2 which I now don't even see on the
| App store anymore. Been waiting for a decent non-subscription
| based alternative
| ThomasBb wrote:
| Is there a way to connect to non-standard SSH port that i'm
| missing?
| bubblewand wrote:
| At a minimum, I'd expect a networking program named "echo" to
| be able to talk to port 7...
| sweetjuly wrote:
| Does it have the same issue with key repeat? It's a long standing
| iOS bug, but some apps seem to fix it (somehow). Without the fix,
| vim ends up being essentially unusable since I can't press and
| hold on the cursor movement keys. iSH, for example, hits the bug
| and it severely limits the usefulness of the app.
| piskov wrote:
| Last time I checked system-level key repeat is only for arrows,
| space, enter, -- not letters.
|
| Some apps just implement it manually, but yeah.
|
| Don't fool yourself into using iPad as your work machine. Buy a
| macbook.
| cjm42 wrote:
| Does it allow truly persistent mosh connections? I can't remember
| which iOS client it was, but I've used one which forgot I was
| connected if I left the app for long enough. The mosh process was
| still running on the server, but my iPad had forgotten how to
| talk to it.
| commandersaki wrote:
| No. Just tried it and it doesn't.
| alxndr13 wrote:
| Really nice! I really enjoy it. The only thing I notice is when
| I'm using Claude code via SSH, the app hangs itself up once the
| conversation gets longer.
|
| Termius, for example, doesn't have the problem.
| gufertum wrote:
| Finally an ios terminal app without the feature creep. Nice and
| functional. Well done, team.
| swiftlysingh wrote:
| Most iOS SSH clients feel like afterthoughts with janky keyboard
| handling. Curious how you're dealing with the input layer, that's
| always been the hardest part to get right on iOS
| zorobo wrote:
| I will give it a spin on my Apple Vision Pro. Have been trying
| ttyd, which could really be great as is it browser based and
| hence I can have as many windows as I want, but a safari bug on
| iOS/ipados/visionos is a showstopper: specifically, safari sends
| keycode 13 events (enter key) when pressing ctrl-c on a hardware
| keyboard. So emacs, interrupting fg processes etc are
| problematic.
|
| I'll submit a pr to xterm.js for a workaround.
| commandersaki wrote:
| Hm I feel gypped with the mosh aspect. I was expecting to be able
| to mosh into a server, context switch, and resume the same
| session later. It doesn't resume, it just requires you establish
| a new session. Meh.
|
| This is not explained at all on their website.
| cynix wrote:
| The description says it supports SSH certificate authentication,
| but I can't see where to configure trusted CAs.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-02-18 23:01 UTC)