Connection managers compared
BURSU Connection Manager next to MobaXterm, Termius, Royal TS, SecureCRT, Remote Desktop Manager, Xshell, XPipe, Warp, Termial and Tempest. Feature availability is compared against each product's permanent free tier where one exists. Paid-only capabilities are marked Paid; a product without a permanent free edition is marked as such.
- BURSUcm BURSUsofts Free 19/23 compared features available free
- MobaXterm Mobatek $69 perpetual 8/23 available in Home Edition
- Termius Termius Corporation $10/mo 11/23 available in Starter
- Royal TS Royal Apps €49 perpetual 9/23 available in Lite
- SecureCRT VanDyke Software $119 perpetual No permanent free edition
- Remote Desktop Manager Devolutions Free for one user 15/23 available in the Free edition
- Xshell NetSarang $119 perpetual 6/23 available in the home and school licence
- XPipe XPipe $10/mo 9/23 available in Community
- Warp Warp from $20/mo 7/23 available in the Free plan
- Termial Termial $10/mo 6/23 available in the Free plan
- Tempest Tempest $5/mo 12/23 available in the Free plan
- Yes
- Limited
- Paid
- Partly
- No
| Feature | BURSUcm Free | MobaXterm $69 perpetual | Termius $10/mo | Royal TS €49 perpetual | SecureCRT $119 perpetual | Remote Desktop Manager Free for one user | Xshell $119 perpetual | XPipe $10/mo | Warp from $20/mo | Termial $10/mo | Tempest $5/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price and licence | |||||||||||
| Free for business use | Yes | No Home Edition is for personal use | Yes | Limited Within the Lite limits | No | Limited One user | No Home and school only | Limited Community edition, meant for personal use cases | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited saved connections in the free version | Yes | Limited 12 sessions | Yes | Limited 10 connections, 10 credentials | No No free edition | Yes | Yes Under the non-commercial licence | Yes | Partly Hosts come from your SSH config; no connection tree | Yes | Yes |
| Platforms | |||||||||||
| Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Paid | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | No | Yes | Paid Royal TSX, a separate licence | Paid | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | No | Yes | No | Paid | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Android and iOS apps | Yes Free apps that open the same catalog | No | Yes | Partly Companion apps that open a Royal TS document | Partly iOS only, sold separately | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Protocols | |||||||||||
| SSH and Telnet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Paid | Yes | Yes | Partly SSH; no Telnet | Partly SSH; no Telnet | Partly SSH; no Telnet | Partly Telnet on Pro |
| RDP remote desktop | Yes Built-in engine with H.264 and multi-monitor | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Partly Launches the system RDP client | No | No | Paid Pro |
| VNC | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Paid Pro |
| WinRM / PowerShell on Windows servers | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes PowerShell sessions; no interactive commands | No | No | No |
| SFTP and FTP file transfer | Yes File panel beside the terminal, plus a two-pane manager | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly An SFTP tab; the full client is SecureFX | Yes | Partly Xftp, a separate product | Yes Remote file browser | No | Limited Basic SFTP on Free | Yes |
| Jump hosts and SSH tunnels | Yes ProxyJump chains; local, remote and SOCKS5 tunnels | Limited 2 tunnels in Home Edition | Yes | Yes | Paid | Yes | Yes | Limited One active tunnel in Community | Partly Through your SSH config and the ssh command | Paid Port forwarding on Pro | Yes |
| Cloud and team | |||||||||||
| Sync across devices | Yes BURSUcloud; the server stores ciphertext only | No | Paid Pro, $10 per user per month | Paid Royal Server, or a document on a file share | No | Paid Team data sources | No | Partly Your own git repository; team vaults are paid | Limited Warp Drive, limited on the Free plan | Paid Pro, $10 per month | Limited One synced device on Free |
| Team sharing with per-folder rights | Yes Read, edit and reveal-password rights per folder | No | Paid Team, $20 per seat per month | Paid Royal Server | No | Paid Team edition | No | Paid Team vaults, Professional | Paid Business, $50 per user per month | Paid Team, $20 per user per month | Paid Team, $9.99 per user per month |
| Encrypted credential vault | Yes AES-256-GCM under a master password; TOTP codes too | Yes | Yes | Yes | Paid | Yes | Yes | Yes | No Keys and passwords stay in your SSH setup | Yes | Yes Zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption |
| Shared database you host yourself | Yes SQLite locally, your own PostgreSQL, or BURSUcloud | No | No | Partly A document on a file share, or Royal Server | No | Paid SQL Server, MySQL and MariaDB data sources in Team | No | Partly Your own git repository | No | No | Partly Self-hostable sync server |
| AI | |||||||||||
| AI assistant acts inside live sessions | Yes SSH, WinRM and RDP: reads the output, runs commands with your approval | No | Partly Command autocomplete | No | No | Yes AI Assistant with a native MCP server, in RDP and SSH sessions | No | No | Yes Warp Agent; Warp-hosted usage is metered | Limited 50 requests a day on Free; agent mode on Pro | Paid Storm AI, Pro |
| Your own API key or a local model | Yes OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek; Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp; one checkbox turns AI off | No | No | No | No | Partly Provider set in the AI Assistant configuration | No | No | Yes BYOK and OpenAI-compatible endpoints on the Free plan | No Termial-hosted Claude and GPT | Paid Claude, GPT, Gemini or self-hosted, on Pro |
| Specialised | |||||||||||
| Mosh (roaming shell) | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Serial console | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Paid | Yes | Yes | Partly Launches an external serial tool | No | No | Paid Pro |
| S3 and WebDAV storage | No | Partly S3 sessions | No | No | No | Partly As a data source for the catalog | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| MCP integration | No | No | No | No | No | Yes Native MCP server | No | No | Yes MCP servers in the agent | No | Yes MCP stdio |
| Native Kubernetes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Paid Pro |
Everything you need is included free. Download BURSUcm See the product tour
Price and licence
| Product | Price | Free edition |
|---|---|---|
| BURSUcm | Free one edition, no per-user licence | Everything: unlimited connections, tunnels, users and devices; BURSUcloud sync with fair-use limits per account |
| MobaXterm Mobatek | $69 per user, a perpetual licence with 12 months of updates | Home Edition: personal use only, 12 sessions, 2 SSH tunnels, 4 macros |
| Termius Termius Corporation | $10 per user per month for Pro, billed yearly; Team is $20 and Business $30 per seat | Starter: no sync between devices, no cloud vault, no shared team vault |
| Royal TS Royal Apps | €49 per user per platform, a perpetual licence with a year of maintenance; Windows and macOS together €79; Royal Server €239 per user | Lite: 10 connections, 10 credentials, one document |
| SecureCRT VanDyke Software | $119 per user with a year of updates; $129 bundled with SecureFX | No free edition — a time-limited evaluation only |
| Remote Desktop Manager Devolutions | Paid per user per year for the Team and Enterprise editions; the price is quoted through the vendor's store | Free edition: one user, no team data sources |
| Xshell NetSarang | $119 per user, a perpetual licence with a year of maintenance; Xftp for files is sold separately | Free for home and school only; any business use needs a licence |
| XPipe XPipe | $10 per month for Professional, or $80 a year; Homelab $5 a month; the Community edition is free | Community: one active tunnel, one Tailscale tailnet, no team vaults, no enterprise OS support |
| Warp Warp | $20 per month for Build; Business $50 per user per month; AI runs on credits | Free plan: 75 AI credits a month after the first two months; Warp Drive sharing limited; hosts come from your SSH config |
| Termial Termial | $10 per month for Pro; Team $20 per user per month | Free: 50 AI requests a day, basic SFTP, no cloud sync, no port forwarding |
| Tempest Tempest | $5 per month for Pro, billed yearly ($59.99 a year); Team $9.99 per user per month; a lifetime licence is offered too | Free: SSH, Mosh, SFTP, FTP, S3 and WebDAV on one synced device; no AI, no RDP, VNC, Telnet or serial |
The free tools
| Tool | What it is | Compared with BURSUcm |
|---|---|---|
| mRemoteNG | Open-source tabbed manager for RDP, SSH, VNC and more. | Windows only, no phone apps, no cloud sync and no team permissions. BURSUcm imports its connection file. |
| PuTTY | The classic free SSH and Telnet client. | A client, not a manager: no folder tree, no vault, no tabs, no sync. BURSUcm imports PuTTY sessions in one step. |
| Tabby | Open-source terminal with SSH, Telnet and serial. | Terminal only: no RDP, VNC or WinRM, no phone apps, no shared vault. |
| WindTerm | Fast free terminal with a session tree and an SFTP pane. | Terminal only: no RDP or VNC, no phone apps, no cloud sync or team sharing. |
Prices and limits were read from the vendors' public pages on 2026-09-07 and may have changed since; product names belong to their owners. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.