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Terminal Emulators: Common SSH Clients | Xshell, Tabby, WindTerm, xTerminal ...

📅 August 14, 2026

  • Xshell & MobaXterm:

    • Xshell was the first SSH connection manager I ever used. It pairs perfectly with Xftp and is very lightweight. I used it for two or three years, but unfortunately, it only supports Windows. I eventually moved on when cross-platform support became a necessity.
    • MobaXterm’s UI feels extremely outdated, and I could never get used to it. It is also Windows-only.

  • Tabby: I used this heavily on Windows between 2023 and 2024. Its file transfer capabilities are decent, but the application feels overly bloated: slow startup times, high memory consumption, and noticeable lag when logs refresh rapidly or contain large amounts of data.

  • WindTerm: Highly recommended everywhere—from tech forums to AI models. However, its maintenance is largely inactive (as of August 2026, the last update was still in February 2025). When I used it previously, I encountered severe bugs (e.g., garbled text after editing files with vim). Furthermore, while many praise it for being lightweight due to its C++ Qt foundation, my own tests showed no significant advantage in startup speed, memory usage, or UI fluidity. There are also many unresolved issues on its GitHub repository.

  • xTerminal: I used this consistently from 2024 to 2026, but I can no longer recommend it. Although newer versions have fixed the initial startup lag, the free version restricts you to only 2 concurrent sessions. More importantly, its terminal is not natively implemented; it lacks standard features like scrolling up through history and Ctrl+Shift+C for copying.

  • Electerm: The UI logic leaves much to be desired. On Ubuntu 20, it fails to connect to the local shell; saved workspace layouts do not auto-reconnect upon reopening; and it lacks multi-tab support. That said, its actual terminal experience is better than xTerminal’s.

  • Shell360: Cannot be installed on Ubuntu 20 and is far too barebones. It appears to only support basic SSH connections, lacking essential features like split panes, custom layouts, and SFTP file transfers.

  • WezTerm: Excellent performance. A single tab containing 3 cmd panes uses only about 101MB of RAM. However, it lacks a visual SSH management interface.

  • Contour Terminal: Slightly heavier on resources; an empty PowerShell terminal tab consumes around 115MB of memory.

  • Termora: Currently in its 2.0 beta phase, with account synchronization locked behind a paywall.

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