Apple App Store a-Shell icon

a-Shell

Published by: Nicolas Holzschuch

Description

a-Shell is a complete local terminal emulator, allowing to run most Unix commands on your iOS device. You can transfer files using scp and curl, edit them with vim and ed, process them using grep, awk and sed. You can work with git repositories using lg2. 
Most commands are compiled for iOS native Arm64 format, making them fast and well integrated with the BSD Unix that powers iOS/iPadOS.
a-Shell includes Python, Lua, Perl, JavaScript, C, C++ for programming and TeX (texlive 2025, with Tikz and LuaTeX) for text processing.
There are also multiple network utilities: nslookup, ping, whois, ifconfig... Type help for help, help -l to get the full list of commands.
a-Shell can be controlled from Shortcuts: run commands in order, process files in a-Shell, get the results as text or files, transfer files to other apps...
a-shell uses iOS 13+ “multiple windows” ability, so you can run multiple shells at the same time, with different commands, in different directories. You can edit a file in one window with vim and process it in the other with python.
Compile your C or C++ programs to webAssembly using clang or clang++, and execute the resulting binary. A complete webAssembly SDK is included (WASI-libc).
a-Shell is the complete version. If you need a smaller app, and you don't need a C compiler, a TeX engine, or numpy and matplotlib, there is a-Shell mini.
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Screenshots

a-Shell FAQ

  • Is a-Shell free?

    Yes, a-Shell is completely free and it doesn't have any in-app purchases or subscriptions.

  • Is a-Shell legit?

    ✅ The a-Shell app appears to be high-quality and legitimate. Users are very satisfied.

    Thanks for the vote

  • How much does a-Shell cost?

    a-Shell is free.

  • What is a-Shell revenue?

    To get estimated revenue of a-Shell app and other AppStore insights you can sign up to AppTail Mobile Analytics Platform.

Netherlands
User Rating

4.92 out of 5

26 ratings in Netherlands

5 star
24
4 star
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Ratings History

a-Shell Reviews

This app is pure gold!

RicoMontulet on

Netherlands

This app is an piece of engineering marvel! Truely! I can finally create and run my home automations from my phone and run them using shortcuts! Developers, hats off to you! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Awesome app and excellent support from the developer

Brass999 on

Netherlands

This app works great and really provides some features I was looking for. Especially the option to compile c-programs on my iPad and the implementation of LaTex is a great combination for me! I had an initial problem to get pdflatex running but I got excellent support from the developer and that fixed the problem. Again, great work Nicolas, and thanks for the support!

OMG

hrfhudson on

Netherlands

I’ve been trying to find a way to shift to an iPad as my on-the-go machine rather than a laptop, but I’m a vi user. I messed around with iVim for a bit, but it won’t do multiple windows and feels brittle in general. This is glorious.

Nice

Catullus57 on

Netherlands

Impressive achivement. In it’s self worth 5 stars, but I still have some doubts about its usability. Th way ipad works, no filemanagement for instance, seems not very compatible. And : an editor like Brief would be nice

Awesome app! Really well done.

PizzaPortal on

Netherlands

Works great! Really cool to play around with. vim is a lovely inclusion, and the wasi compilation is great. A few feature requests: - git - pinch to zoom to change font size (useful on iPhone when you want to get a better overview) - a tip jar 😉

Why does this not have nano?

Some Guy from space on

United States

why is nano not included? if it doesn't have gpl standard utilities, this isn't very useful.

Amazing toolkit!

Jackal X on

United States

The app I could never find. Local terminal with more. Awesome app! Super handy.

Runs a terminal directly on iPad

Jcenmiami on

United States

This is a pretty impressive terminal. I can run python programs directly on the terminal. Support for pip, SFTP, SSH, etc.

Some feature suggestion

dptub on

United States

Salute the developer. Hi,I have some feature suggestions, and I don't know if you can add them in the future. 1. It has its own directory and can be accessed directly in the software. 2.You can directly run the specified file by accessing your own directory, so you don't need to enter the running instructions. 3.When we share code from third party software, the program to the software can provide the ability to view the code and run the code. The above is my personal advice, of course, whether to implement these features is entirely up to you, but no matter what changes will be made in the future, I hope this development tool will be better and better here.Finally, I hope you can have a good mood every day.🤭

A power users tool

Subcomandante on

United States

Having the power of Unix, a Python interpreter, and integration with Shortcuts unlocks power that is not usually available to iPad users. Really really cool.

Store Rankings

Ranking History
Category Rankings
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