The best SSH clients for Android – including two of my favorites

You regularly need quick access to a Linux machine on your local area network, but sometimes you don’t have your laptop with you. With your Android smartphone at hand, you don’t need to pull out your laptop or stand at your desk to run SSH commands.

Also: What is SSH and how to use it? Secure Shell basics you need to know

So how do you connect via SSH from your Android device? Luckily, there are several apps on the Google Play Store that make this process easy.

Each app is free to install and use, so you can try each one out and decide which one you prefer. Some apps have free and paid plans, but all are free to use (with basic features).

Go to your customers.

1. Juice SSH

Juice SSH is one of the best SSH clients for Android. This free client offers decent features to easily access remote machines. One of my favorite features of JuiceSSH is that you can quickly enlarge the font using your phone’s volume up key. This trick is useful as the text can be small, which is important for older eyes like mine.

Also: How to make SSH easier to use with configuration files

JuiceSSH also offers features like identity management, automatic script execution on login, plugins, themes, external keyboard support, SSH agent forwarding, and easy access to commands like Ctrl, Alt, Esc, and Tab. The Pro version of JuiceSSH adds snippets, Amazon EC2 access, and security lock. The Pro version is a one-time fee of $9.99, and the license is purchased in-app. Available plugins include Performance Monitor, OpenSSH Importer, Cluster Snippets, and Tasker.

2. Thermius

Thermius is one of my favorite desktop GUI SSH apps, and it works great on Android too. Terminus is another SSH client that has free and paid apps, but both versions offer the same benefits of cloud-based encrypted storage of your connection configuration and settings. Termius includes a connection manager, SSH key authentication, SFTP support, lots of built-in themes, groups, tags, and vaults.

Also: The Best SSH Clients for Linux (And Why You Need Them)

The Pro edition adds snippets, agent forwarding, host chaining, and proxy configuration. Termius allows you to zoom in and out (to increase/decrease font size) using standard Android pinch gestures, and also provides quick access to Ctl, Escape, and function keys, along with built-in AI to convert text into commands.

3. Termax

Turmax Termux is more of a terminal emulator than a basic SSH client, so it can do a lot more. In fact, Termux turns your Android phone or tablet into a Linux environment, allowing you to run many traditional Linux commands, one of which is SSH. But there’s a catch: to add SSH functionality, you need to install it. To do this, install Termux, open the app, and run the following command:

Once you have installed openssh, you can run standard SSH commands as you normally would.

Also: How to make SSH easier to use with configuration files

When it comes to SSH, Termux is pretty basic. There are no connection managers, plugins, or other cool features. But it’s very handy to have a very simple Linux terminal for SSH connections. Termux is free to install and use.

4. ConnectBot

ConnectBot is the only open source app on the list, which makes it special for me. ConnectBot has a clean, easy-to-use interface and features that make it worth your time. Features include color categories, font size configuration, SSH key authentication, DEL key configuration, SSH authentication agent support, compression, persistent connection, exit on disconnect, post-login automation, and more.

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One great feature of ConnectBot is that it allows you to maintain a connection to your machine. As long as you’re on the same network, the connection will work. You can create multiple connections in the connection manager and stay connected to all of them, allowing you to quickly switch between different machines. This feature alone has made ConnectBot popular. ConnectBot is free to install and use.

Any of these SSH Android clients will do the trick, my favorites are either ConnectBot or JuiceSSH.