A ConnectBot alternative that keeps what it gets right

What ConnectBot still gets right

It is genuinely open source, Apache-2.0, and asks for no account. The build on F-Droid drops Google Play Services entirely, so it runs on a device that has none. There is no vendor to go out of business or pivot to a subscription, because there is no vendor - Kenny Root, who wrote it, still maintains it with the community.

It also supports SSH agent forwarding properly, which most mobile clients, Termphin included, do not do yet. Turn on "Use SSH auth agent" for a host - optionally with a confirmation prompt each time a key is used - and ConnectBot serves your keys to the remote host, so you can hop onward from there without leaving a private key on the server. If that is the feature you rely on, it is still the answer on Android.

And it is not the app people remember. The interface has been rewritten in Jetpack Compose and Material 3 - if you last looked at ConnectBot years ago and wrote it off on the strength of the UI, look again before you take anyone's word for it, including ours.

Termphin against ConnectBot, honestly

Where ConnectBot wins: agent forwarding, and a codebase you can read end to end because none of it is closed.

Where Termphin wins: everything that touches a file - SFTP, transfers, snippets - and staying connected when the network does not cooperate.

What Termphin adds

• Sessions that survive the network dying. A small open-source agent on the server keeps your shell alive through a dropped connection or a switched network and reattaches you to it. ConnectBot will dial back on its own if you ask it to, but what you get is a fresh shell - the job that was running is gone.
• A real SFTP browser, with a text editor and image preview, for the file transfers ConnectBot leaves to another app.
• Snippets for commands you run often, with their output kept.
• An interface built for a phone - a key toolbar for the characters a terminal needs, 14 colour schemes, and text selection that works with a thumb.
• A PIN or biometric lock on the app itself.

Moving your hosts over

Note down each host, port, username and any jump-host setting from ConnectBot before you switch - the safest sequence is the same as any key rotation. Generate a fresh keypair in Termphin, or import an existing OpenSSH PEM key if you already have one elsewhere.

Add the new public key to authorized_keys alongside the one ConnectBot uses, confirm you can log in with it on every server, and only then remove the old key. Both apps can stay installed in the meantime - there is no reason to choose one before the migration is finished.

Frequently asked questions

Is ConnectBot still a good choice?

For agent forwarding over SSH, yes - it is the usual answer on Android and does it well. For file transfers or staying connected through a network change, it has no answer at all.

Does ConnectBot support SFTP?

No. It handles SSH sessions, port-forwarding tunnels and jump hosts, but not file transfer. You need a separate app, or a client that includes one.

What happens to a ConnectBot session if the connection drops?

It ends. ConnectBot has a stay-connected option that reconnects for you, but there is no reattachment: what comes back is a fresh shell, and anything that was running in the old one died with it. That is true of most SSH clients without a server-side agent.

Can I use ConnectBot and Termphin at the same time?

Yes. Both read the same authorized_keys mechanism, so there is nothing stopping you from keeping ConnectBot installed for agent forwarding while using Termphin for everything else.

Is Termphin open source like ConnectBot?

Partially. The terminal renderer and the server agent are, in public repositories. The app itself is not, though it has no server component and nothing it stores leaves your device.