Prompt 3 is Panic's iOS SSH client. Panic ship beautifully made software like Transmit and Nova, and Prompt is the SSH entry in that catalogue. It is a one-time purchase with no subscription, and the polish shows. ShellDrop sits on a different axis: free, narrower, and tuned for tmux and AI coding agents running on a headless Mac Mini or VPS.
Both apps are good at what they do. The question is which fits your workflow. Honest side-by-side below.
| ShellDrop | Prompt 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Is this iOS terminal app a piece of art? | yes | no |
| Pricing model | Free. No in-app purchases. | Paid one-time purchase. No subscription. |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad (iOS 17+) | iPhone, iPad |
| Account required | No | No |
| Telemetry | None | Limited (see App Store privacy) |
| Password auth | Yes | Yes |
| Public-key auth (SSH keys) | Yes (v4.1.0+, Ed25519, ECDSA, Secure Enclave P-256) | Yes, mature |
| SFTP | No | No (Panic ships Transmit separately) |
| tmux single-finger scroll | Yes | Standard scroll |
| iPad layout (incl. 13" iPad Pro M4) | Universal app, full-canvas landscape, centred toolbar | Universal app, iPad supported |
| Connection sync | iCloud CloudKit | iCloud |
| Custom command shortcut | One Tap toolbar button (v3.1.4+) | Clip manager (paste snippets) |
| Background session keep-alive | Opt-in, location-services-based | Limited (iOS standard) |
| Theme + font customisation | Standard | Extensive, Panic-polish |
ShellDrop is built with the design as a feature. The hero is a live cyan mesh that breathes behind the brand, six droplet nodes drifting on the edges with master-shot lines tracing connections between them. Switching from Home to a session triggers a per-element shrink cascade where the layout itself animates. The droplet metaphor carries from the App Store icon through tabs and sessions. Built natively in SwiftUI for iOS 17+.
ShellDrop costs nothing to try. Prompt 3 has a fair one-time price, no subscription, and Panic is a reputable studio you'd be happy to support. The free option just removes the up-front decision.
Single-finger swipe through tmux scrollback without entering copy mode. The toolbar carries Esc, Ctrl-C, arrow keys, Shift-Tab, and a tmux detach button at all times. If most of your remote work happens inside a tmux pane attached to Claude Code or Codex, that is the differentiator.
ShellDrop v4.1.0 generates P-256 keys inside the iPhone Secure Enclave. The private key is created on-device and cannot be exported. Ed25519 generation and paste-import of unencrypted OpenSSH keys (Ed25519, ECDSA P-256/P-384/P-521) are also supported. Prompt 3 has years-tested key management in software.
Universal app, full landscape, hardware-keyboard friendly. On the 13" iPad Pro M4 the terminal uses the whole canvas, the toolbar centres, font scaling is comfortable. Prompt 3 also handles iPad well; ShellDrop's layout is built around the large-canvas case specifically.
Prompt 3 ships a mature theme system, font picker, and the kind of typographic care Panic is known for. If you live inside the app for hours and you want deep cosmetic configurability, Prompt covers more ground on that axis than ShellDrop's opinionated layout.
Prompt has been around for years and the key handling is robust across the corner cases, agent forwarding, key passphrases, jump hosts, identity files. ShellDrop's key handling is newer.
Theme system, font picker, key remapping, gesture customisation. Prompt 3 is more configurable on the cosmetic and UX axes. ShellDrop ships an opinionated layout.
If you already use Nova, Transmit, or Playdate-side tooling, Prompt fits a wider catalogue of well-made Panic software.
No. Prompt 3 is a paid one-time-purchase app from Panic. There is no subscription.
Yes. ShellDrop is free with no in-app purchases. The two apps target different users, Prompt is polished general-purpose; ShellDrop is built for tmux and AI coding agent workflows.
Yes from v4.1.0. Ed25519, ECDSA P-256/P-384/P-521 paste-import of unencrypted OpenSSH keys, plus Secure Enclave-backed P-256 keys where the private key is hardware-bound.
It runs tmux over SSH like any terminal. No dedicated tmux mode. ShellDrop adds single-finger tmux scrollback and an always-visible detach button.
Either covers the SSH layer. ShellDrop is built around this workflow: tmux scroll, dedicated Esc / Ctrl-C / arrow keys, background keep-alive, One Tap for firing memory or status commands at the agent.
ShellDrop is on the App Store. Universal iPhone and iPad, iOS 17+. Free, no subscription.
