Introducing Electerm

Electerm is a free and open-source terminal / SSH / SFTP / Telnet / Serial / RDP / VNC / Spice / FTP client for Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, HarmonyOS and iOS. It is built with web technologies (Electron + React) and released under the MIT license. Source code: github.com/electerm/electerm.

If you live in terminals all day, electerm tries to be the one app that covers almost everything: local shell, remote SSH, file transfer, remote desktop, workspaces, quick commands, batch operations, sync, themes, and AI assistance.

Watch the overview first: Electerm Usage Demo

One app, many protocols

Most terminal apps do one thing. Electerm bundles them:

• Terminal: full-featured local terminal emulator with themes, background image, font settings, keyword highlighting, transparency, zoom, auto-copy-on-select.
• SSH + SFTP: the core workflow. SSH terminal with an SFTP file manager side-by-side, path sync between them, drag-and-drop transfer, compressed folder transfer, remote file editing, server info dashboard.
• FTP / Telnet / Serial port: for legacy devices, routers, embedded boards.
• RDP / VNC / Spice: graphical remote desktop sessions (VNC is beta), including file transfer for RDP.
• Web: open internal dashboards as tabs next to your terminals.

That means a typical day — SSH into prod, SFTP a build artifact, RDP into a Windows box, serial into a dev board — can all stay in one window with one bookmark store.

Terminal + SFTP, side by side

The signature layout is terminal and SFTP in a split view for the same host:

• Open an SSH bookmark with both enableSsh and enableSftp on.
• Toggle the split with the file-manager button.
• Enable SFTP follow terminal path so cd in the shell moves the file panel automatically (and vice versa).
• Double-click a remote file to edit it locally, save to upload.
• Compress-transfer for folders, chmod editor, file-info panel.

Related videos:

• Electerm Terminal and SFTP Split View
• Electerm SFTP Transfer Files and Folders
• Electerm Drag and Drop File Transfer Between SFTP
• Electerm SFTP Path Sync with Terminal

Bookmarks, quick commands, batch input

Bookmarks are electerm's connection manager: folders, tags, colors, descriptions, per-bookmark proxy, encoding, terminal type, startup directories, run-scripts after connect, and deep-link support (ssh://user@host:22 opens electerm directly). You can even generate bookmarks from natural language with AI (see the AI post).

Quick commands are reusable snippets bound to a bookmark or global: one click runs docker ps, kubectl get pods, log tailing, etc. There is a template gallery in the wiki and a video walkthrough.

Batch operations go further:

• Batch input / mirror input: type once, send to many terminals at once — perfect for rolling restarts across a fleet.
• Batch command execution: run a script across selected sessions and collect results.

Videos:

• Electerm Quick Commands
• Electerm Batch Operations
• Electerm Batch and Mirror Input to Multiple Terminals

Workspaces and session layout

If you open the same 6 sessions every morning, save them as a workspace: layout + connection list in one click, including auto-load on startup. Session layout (split panes, tabs) is saved per workspace, so "frontend + backend + db + logs" is one action.

• Electerm Workspace
• Electerm Session Layout
• Electerm Open Bookmarks on Startup

Sync, cloud, and portability

Bookmarks, themes and quick commands can be synced to:

• GitHub / Gitee secret gist
• WebDAV
• Custom sync server
• electerm cloud (sync.electerm.org)

Import/export is a plain JSON file, so migration between machines is trivial. There is also electerm-web and a Docker image if you want the same UI in a browser, plus cloud.electerm.org for the hosted online version.

Video: Electerm Sync Data to Cloud Service

Customization without limits

• Themes: full UI + terminal theme editor, import from the iTerm2 color-scheme collection, share via theme.electerm.org.
• Fonts, transparency, background image, custom CSS: restyle almost anything; the wiki has custom-CSS examples.
• Hotkeys: global toggle (Ctrl+2 by default, Guake-style), editable shortcuts.
• Multiple instances, system title bar, startup password, local startup directory.

Videos:

• Electerm Theme Settings and Editing
• Electerm Terminal Background Settings
• Electerm Custom CSS Styling
• Electerm Change Font Settings

SSH power features (preview)

Electerm's SSH stack covers password, public key, ssh-agent, OpenSSH certificates, keyboard-interactive (MFA/TOTP prompts), connection hopping (jump hosts), NetBird / proxy-command, SOCKS/HTTP proxy, X11 forwarding, keep-alive, and local/remote/dynamic SSH tunnels. The dedicated post SSH in Electerm: auth, jump hosts, NetBird and tunnels walks through all of them with wiki links.

AI built in (preview)

Command generation from natural language, explain-selection, AI-created bookmarks, theme generation, and an agent mode that runs multi-step tasks in the terminal — backed by any OpenAI-compatible API or the free ai.electerm.org service. Full tour: AI Features in Electerm.

Where to go next

• Install Electerm on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS
• Official wiki — deep docs for every feature above
• Video guides — 40+ short demos, one per feature
• Download — pick your platform and try the demo bookmark first