Show HN: Echo, an iOS SSH+mosh client built on Ghostty (opens in new tab)

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

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?

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/

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?

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!

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.)

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.

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.

How do I add other keys to the little virtual keyboard? Inability to easily type ` is pretty tough. Looks beautiful though.

Amazing-looking UX. My biggest feature suggestion: implement support for SSH jump hosts. I suspect having a single SSH gateway in your homelab that you configure all other hosts with ProxyJump in .ssh/config is a super-common setup amongst your target audience.

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

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.

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 :(

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?

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.

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.

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.

The requirements for this seem strange. What is it about iOS 26.2 that makes it a minimum requirement?

Feature request: The ability to sync my saved connections to iCloud, so I can keep them in sync across all my different devices. Just the connection and nickname really. Don’t want password or keys to be synced.

I can't figure out how to use this, I can't scroll up/down?

Such a shame that it only works on iOS 26. I was willing to buy it. Is there any technical reason not to target older devices?

I totally recommend Termius as a more mature alternative tho. It may not be as interesting as using Ghostty, but works on an older OS.

Finally an ios terminal app without the feature creep. Nice and functional. Well done, team.

Unfortunately, I can't connect to my NixOS machines as their sshd is hardened to only support ETM MAC by default, which Echo doesn't support (as per their troubleshooting doc). Any idea when other MACs would be supported?

Does this work with a Yubikey?

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.

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

Looks nice. Does anyone know if there is something similar for Android?

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

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.

The description says it supports SSH certificate authentication, but I can’t see where to configure trusted CAs.

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.

It looks really nice and clean. It's an SSH app though, right, so I would need a server to remote into?

Some brutal reviews on the iOS app store suggesting RSA keys do not work?

Agent forwarding support would be nice.

Is there a way to connect to non-standard SSH port that i’m missing?

I definitely love the UI. Also amazing Job you did

This is really, really nice. Thanks for sharing!

Any chance you'd consider an android port?

Amazing! Insta-buy for me.

finally I can move off termius, this looks great!

This sounds nice, but since you're talking about using it with agents, to what extent was AI used to actually write the app?