termique vs Tabby
Native SSH manager vs Electron terminal
The short version.
- Fully open source
- A real plugin ecosystem
- Serial and Telnet alongside SSH
- Electron, around 400 MB of memory
- No mobile app
- No AI assistant; sync needs your own server or a plugin
- Native Tauri runtime, around 80 MB
- Credentials encrypted end-to-end out of the box
- Sync, SFTP, AI and audit logs in one app
Want one native app that carries your encrypted vault to desktop and phone? termique. Want to read and extend every line? Tabby.
Every row, side by side.
Where the two part ways.
01Runtime
- termique
- Tauri, about 80 MB.
- Tabby
- Electron, about 400 MB.
Read the detail
Native vs Electron. Tabby is built on Electron, which means it ships a full Chromium browser just to render a terminal. Termique uses Tauri - a native Rust runtime. Cold start under 2 seconds, fraction of the memory.
02AI assistant
- termique
- Reads your SSH session and suggests commands.
- Tabby
- None.
Read the detail
Built-in AI vs no AI. Tabby has no AI assistant. Termique's AI is scoped to the active SSH session - it reads your terminal context and suggests commands. You review before anything runs.
03How it's built
- termique
- Everything ships in one tested app.
- Tabby
- Built-in vault; sync and extras via plugins or your own server.
Read the detail
Coherent product vs plugin ecosystem. Tabby ships a credential vault, but cloud sync means running your own server or adding a plugin, and much of its range comes from plugins - each with its own setup and versions. Termique ships everything - credentials, cloud sync, AI, SFTP, audit logs - in one tested, coherent app.
On every device you use.
Both are cross-platform, so the difference is not availability. Tabby is Electron and bundles Chromium; Termique is Tauri on Rust and uses the OS webview.
Tabby has no mobile client. Termique has iOS and Android companion apps that share the same encrypted host list.
Moving over from Tabby.
- 01Open your Tabby config
Tabby keeps everything in a single YAML file - ~/.config/tabby/config.yaml on macOS and Linux, %APPDATA%\tabby\config.yaml on Windows. Your SSH profiles are listed in it in readable form.
- 02Extract the SSH profiles
Copy the host, port and username of each profile. If you kept secrets in Tabby's vault, note those credentials before you remove Tabby.
- 03Add hosts in Termique
Recreate the hosts, or move them into ~/.ssh/config and let Termique import them. Credentials go in once, AES-GCM encrypted on-device.
Is Termique open source?
No, the client is not. That is a real trade-off against Tabby and worth weighing if source availability matters to you.
Is Termique lighter than Tabby?
It is built with Tauri on a Rust backend rather than Electron, so it uses the OS webview instead of bundling Chromium. That generally means a smaller install and lower idle memory, though the difference varies by machine.
Does Termique support plugins?
No. Tabby's plugin system is its main advantage. Termique ships a fixed feature set - credential vault, SFTP, key manager, AI assistant, audit logs.
Does Termique support serial or Telnet?
No, SSH and SFTP only.
How is credential storage different?
Tabby has a built-in vault that encrypts your secrets with a master password. In Termique the vault is not optional: AES-256-GCM under a key derived from your master password on-device, synced to your other devices, phone included, only as ciphertext.