The Xshell alternative for every desk — free at work too.

01  /  free without the fine print

Free that doesn't ask where you work.

Xshell's free license is genuinely free — for home and school. Open it at the office and commercial use needs a $119 license per user. Termalin's Free tier has no such split: the whole desktop app is free for everyone, work included, with no host limits. The paid plans only add the encrypted cloud — and every new account starts with a 14-day Pro trial, no card required.

• ▸Free means the full app — SSH, SFTP with a built-in editor, session recording & replay, the watch grid and the MCP agent, local-only.
• ▸Pro for $8/mo billed yearly adds the end-to-end encrypted cloud vault, sync across devices and cloud recordings.
• ▸Prefer paying once? There's a one-time lifetime Pro deal during the beta.

02  /  every desk

One client on Windows, macOS and Linux — synced.

Xshell is Windows-only. Termalin is one client on all three desktops — the same tabs, files, keys and history on each — and it syncs them end-to-end encrypted: your vault is encrypted on your device before upload, the server stores only ciphertext, and the master password can't be reset by design. Read the security model →

• ▸Native builds for all three desktop platforms, with signed auto-updates.
• ▸The browser cabinet at termal.in/account covers everything else — a real terminal, SFTP and recordings from a phone or tablet, no install.
• ▸Works fully offline — the Free tier is local-only; the cloud is an add-on, not a requirement.

03  /  the part no one else has

An SSH client your AI agents can use too.

Termalin ships a real MCP server over the hosts you choose. Your agent lists them and works through Termalin — opening its own sessions or stepping into yours — while a key custodian signs on its behalf, so the agent never holds a key. You watch every move in the grid, and each agent action is marked in the recording. Nothing like it exists in Xshell.

04  /  switching — honestly

Moving over, and where Xshell still wins.

Termalin imports hosts from an ~/.ssh/config, a CSV, PuTTY or MobaXterm — get your hosts into any of those formats and they come across in a click. Export back to an SSH config or CSV any time: no lock-in, either direction. The honest part: if you're a home user on Windows, Xshell's free license is hard to argue with — it's the full commercial feature set, free of charge, on up to three of your machines, from a long-established vendor. Termalin's case starts when you need macOS or Linux, encrypted sync, built-in SFTP — or a client you can also use at work without a license.