iSH
Hacker ApprovedRanked 9 of 27 compatibility layers by recommenders
Free iOS app giving a full Alpine Linux shell with OpenSSH, usable without jailbreak. Critics note it is slow, lacks JIT, and is weaker for TUI apps than Termux.
Free iOS app giving a full Alpine Linux shell with OpenSSH, usable without jailbreak. Critics note it is slow, lacks JIT, and is weaker for TUI apps than Termux.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
SSH to other machines
“Just use iSH and use the local terminal on the iPhone from which you can connect to the Mac terminal.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “I think WebRTC is better than SSH-ing for connecting to Mac terminal from iPhone” “Just use ish and standard ssh”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “I think WebRTC is better than SSH-ing for connecting to Mac terminal from iPhone” “pretty great for ssh via VPN”
Comment from 11 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” - Comment from 21 Jul 2026 in “Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber”
Full Alpine Linux shell on iOS
“There are apps like iSH on iOS or Termux on Android that give you a Linux shell.”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Nokia N900 Necromancy” “Luckily I found ish which gives me alpine Linux on top of a virtual x86 machine”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “Phone is about to stop being yours” “it's a full blown Alpine environment running through x86 emulation in the app”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “iPhone Duo” Runs compiled tools and blogs
“Compiled cobalt with liquid-rust on iSH is fast enough for static blog publishing”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Liquid-rust: Liquid templating for Rust” “which is quite functional for compiled apps”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “You will own nothing and be (un)happy”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow, no JIT compilation
“with predictably much lower performance than Termux (due to JIT being banned in iOS apps)”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Termux” “Both are unusably slow even on the latest iPad Pro.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Linux Runs on Raspberry Pi RP2350's Hazard3 RISC-V Cores (2024)”
Other compatibility layers people recommend
The four most recommended other compatibility layers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proton by Valve | 451 | 189 | 70% | 13 | 2 yrs31 owners | Approved |
| Wine | 329 | 88 | 79% | 13 | 10 yrs11 owners | Approved |
| Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) | 159 | 101 | 61% | 12 | 3 yrs9 owners | — |
| WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) | 115 | 55 | 68% | 12 | — | Approved |
| iSHThis page | 17 | 6 | 74% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
24 of the 26 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's a full blown Alpine environment running through x86 emulation in the app”
“that hasn't had an update in three years”
“Hermes + Tailscale + iSH.”
“pretty great for ssh via VPN”
“more user-friendly than putting a bunch of development tools inside iSH or UTM”
“Both good but nowhere near the termux ecosystem and integration”
“Luckily I found ish which gives me alpine Linux on top of a virtual x86 machine”
“I have that loaded on my phone, but look at /proc/version.”
“both ish and termux are great options on mobile/iPad!”
“they don't have GUI capability and are somewhat limited in other ways”
“Just use ish and standard ssh”
“Just use iSH and use the local terminal on the iPhone from which you can connect to the Mac terminal.”
“it severely limits the usefulness of the app”
“using the ssh client in iSH to interact with TUI interfaces is a less than optimal experience”
“I like it because it's a standard Linux distribution with OpenSSH”
“It has a good font out of the box, so it displays tmux and neovim properly.”
“with predictably much lower performance than Termux (due to JIT being banned in iOS apps)”
“can't get the sprites CLI installed on either of them”
“Both are unusably slow even on the latest iPad Pro.”
“Been using Termux and iSH on my phones for years.”
“Compiled cobalt with liquid-rust on iSH is fast enough for static blog publishing”
“There are apps like iSH on iOS or Termux on Android that give you a Linux shell.”
“No jailbreaks or sideloading required.”
“which is quite functional for compiled apps”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.