Oryxis

A modern SSH client built entirely in Rust. Fast, encrypted, native.

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What is Oryxis?

Oryxis is an open-source alternative to Termius: a desktop SSH client with a modern UI, an encrypted local vault for credentials, and no cloud account anywhere in the loop. No Electron, no webview, no vendor servers. Just a single native binary.

Most SSH clients make you pick two out of three: powerful but dated (PuTTY), pretty but Electron-heavy (Termius, Tabby), or minimal and terminal-only (OpenSSH). Oryxis aims at all three: beautiful, fast, and native.

	Oryxis	Termius	PuTTY	Tabby
UI stack	Native Rust (iced + wgpu)	Electron	Native	Electron
License	AGPL-3.0, open source	Proprietary	MIT	MIT
Credential storage	Local encrypted vault	Vendor cloud account	None	Local config files
Device sync	P2P, E2E encrypted, optionally self-hosted relay	Vendor cloud (subscription)	None	Via Tabby Web
SFTP	Dual-pane GUI and an interactive console	Paid plan	CLI only	Basic panel
Price	Free	Free tier + subscription	Free	Free

Install

Windows

or, from a terminal:

winget install WilsonGlasser.Oryxis

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S oryxis-bin

Direct downloads from the latest release:

Platform	Architecture	Download
Linux	x86_64	.tar.gz · .deb · .AppImage
Linux	ARM64	.tar.gz · .deb · .AppImage
macOS	Apple Silicon	.dmg · .tar.gz
Windows	x86_64	setup.exe · user-setup.exe · .zip portable
Windows	ARM64	setup.exe · user-setup.exe · .zip portable

Which Windows installer? (system vs per-user, VSCode-style)

• System (oryxis-setup-*.exe): installs to Program Files, registers under HKLM, requires UAC. Use this for shared machines or when all Windows users should share the install. This is the build winget install targets.
• Per-user (oryxis-user-setup-*.exe): installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Oryxis, registers under HKCU, no admin rights. Use this on locked-down machines or when you don't want UAC prompts on every update.

Both register oryxis and oryxis-mcp on PATH so they resolve from any shell. The auto-updater detects the install scope and downloads the matching installer. Windows binaries are Authenticode-signed (see Code signing policy).

• Portable (oryxis-windows-*.zip): unzip anywhere (a USB key) and run oryxis.exe; the auto-updater replaces the exe in place. A new copy keeps everything (device settings, the vault list, the vaults, plugins, logs) in a data folder it creates next to oryxis.exe, so the folder travels with it. On a computer where Oryxis already keeps its data in %USERPROFILE%\.oryxis, the copy keeps using that: create the data folder yourself to switch, and copy the contents of %USERPROFILE%\.oryxis into it to bring the setup along (nothing is moved for you). A vault opened from another drive (a VeraCrypt volume) stays where it is; vaults and folders on the USB key itself are remembered relative to the data folder, so another drive letter does not break them. Biometric unlock, the MCP client configs and the oryxis:// link registration belong to each computer. On Linux and macOS the same works by creating an oryxis-data folder next to the binary, the .AppImage file or Oryxis.app (named after the app because those usually sit in a shared folder).

Highlights

• Native and fast. Pure Rust, GPU-accelerated iced UI, single binary. No Electron, no webview.
• Encrypted local vault. Argon2id + ChaCha20-Poly1305 per field, optional master password, biometric unlock (Windows Hello / Touch ID / Linux keyring), idle auto-lock, TOTP autofill for 2FA hosts, and stored passwords offered at sudo prompts (never sent on their own).
• Several vaults. Keep Work and Personal in separate encrypted files, each with its own master password, settings, sync and MCP exposure, open at once: every window works on one vault and switches in place from the Home tab, a per-vault shortcut or the palette, while the other vault's tabs keep running. Two vaults never share a key.
• The full SSH pipeline. Auto-auth, multi-hop jump chains, SOCKS / HTTP / command proxies, agent forwarding, standalone -L/-R/-D port forwarding, expect-style login scripts for menu-driven bastions (JumpServer and friends).
• Security keys, natively. A YubiKey or any FIDO2 token signs sk-ssh-ed25519 / sk-ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 logins from the app itself on Windows, Linux and macOS (Windows Hello included), with the touch and PIN asked on your screen, a hardware-only Security Key method, and no external agent in between.
• Bring your hosts along. One import reads what you already have: ~/.ssh/config, PuTTY, KiTTY, WinSCP, mRemoteNG, MobaXterm, SecureCRT, Xshell, FinalShell, Termius or any CSV. Pick the file (or the sessions folder) and the format is detected for you; an edited host CSV export comes back as updates, removals and folders.
• Offline when you say so. One switch, offered at first run and in Settings, and Oryxis makes no request of its own: no update checks, no font or plugin downloads. What you configured yourself still travels. For a machine that never had a network, an offline bundle ships next to every release with the plugins and font packs already inside and the switch already on.
• More than SSH. Telnet and serial consoles for the gear that never learned SSH, raw TCP lines for console servers, ZMODEM transfers, local shells, and one-click RDP/VNC through an SSH tunnel.
• Sessions that survive the network. Switch mosh on for a host and the shell rides out sleep, a change of Wi-Fi and a change of address, with the interface saying how long the link has been out of touch rather than pretending it is fine. A native Rust client speaking the stock mosh-server's protocol, so there is nothing extra to install on your machine.
• A real terminal. alacritty-based emulator, split panes, session groups, per-host themes, an optional translucent background or background image, bundled Nerd Fonts plus a downloadable font pack (JetBrains Mono, Fira Code, MesloLGS and more), smart tabs that flag long-running commands, per-host command history offered as you type, a caret of your shape, and a per-host East Asian ambiguous-width setting so CJK TUIs line up.
• Snippets that run a sequence. One snippet can type commands, wait for a command to finish or for a line in its output, copy or save what it printed, and call other snippets, all on the terminal you started it on, with variables asked once. The ones you use most can sit as buttons in a snippet bar under the terminal.
• As many windows as you like. One process, any number of windows, each with its own tabs, hosts screen and search. Drag a tab past the edge to tear it off, drop it on another window's tab bar to dock it, or connect a host straight into a new window.
• Files everywhere. Dual-pane SFTP with drag-and-drop, symbolic links, edit-in-place and server-to-server copy; every SSH tab also carries a Files sidebar that follows your shell's working directory. Prefer typing? An interactive SFTP console speaks sftp(1)'s commands (get, put, mget, lcd, globs, Tab completion, inline progress), opening as a pane of the session you are already in (stacked, beside or zoomed, your choice) with one switch between terminal, console and files.
• Session recording. Encrypted at rest; exports to asciinema .cast (theme embedded) or plain transcript, output-only by design.
• The sysadmin toolbox. An optional network tools panel (off by default, opens as its own tab): DNS records, ping, traceroute, TCP port test, HTTP redirect chain and certificate inspection, WHOIS, and the public spam blocklists.
• Cloud accounts. AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and Kubernetes discovery and connect (EC2, SSM, ECS Exec, GKE, AKS, ACK, TKE, kubectl), shipped as signed on-demand plugins.
• AI where you work. A per-tab assistant (bring your own key: Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, or compatible) with layered auto-exec safety, plus an MCP server that exposes your hosts to AI clients like Claude Code, installs itself into seven of them, adds or edits hosts when you allow it, and runs a command as root only after you approve it on screen.
• P2P sync, no cloud. End-to-end encrypted (X25519 + XChaCha20-Poly1305) over QUIC; mDNS on the LAN, optional self-hosted signaling/relay across networks. No account, no vendor server.
• Keyboard-first. user@host quick connect (Ctrl+K), Ctrl+Tab by recent use or by the tab bar's order, full keyboard navigation down to the last toggle, every hotkey rebindable, or start from Windows Terminal's, Tabby's or iTerm2's keys.
• Private by design. No telemetry, Privacy Mode masking, a paste guard that reads what you're pasting, and 23 languages with full RTL support: English, Português, Español, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, Русский, فارسی, العربية, עברית, 한국어, Polski, Türkçe, Bahasa Indonesia, Tiếng Việt, Українська, ไทย, हिन्दी, Čeština, Ελληνικά.

The complete inventory lives in the feature tour. Using tmux? Logs and command history under tmux explains what works out of the box and what you install yourself. Want the file browser to track your shell exactly? Following the shell's directory has the snippet. Getting a copy of your vault off this machine, into a cloud folder or anywhere else? Backups and where to keep them covers sync, export, and the tools that carry a file the rest of the way.

Screenshots

Click any thumbnail for the full-size image.

Hosts dashboard: card grid, groups, distro auto-detection	Dual-pane SFTP: drag-and-drop, multi-select, edit-in-place
Streaming AI sidebar with per-block Copy / Play	Cloud Accounts: AWS / Kubernetes providers, multi-region fan-out
Keychain: keys and reusable Identities side by side	Terminal palettes with inline previews, plus custom schemes
Settings → Interface: tab styling with live preview, app theme grid

Quick start

1. First launch: choose a master password or continue without one (you can enable it, plus biometric unlock, later in Settings).
2. Add hosts: click + HOST, or just type user@host (Ctrl+K) to connect without saving. Coming from another SSH client? Import brings its saved sessions over in one step.
3. Connect: click a host card. Split panes, the Files sidebar, SFTP and snippets are one keystroke away.
4. Optional extras: AI chat (Settings > AI), MCP server (Settings > Security, setup guide), P2P sync between your devices (Settings > Sync, self-hosting guide).

Questions? Check the FAQ or open a Discussion.

Security

Everything sensitive is encrypted per-field at rest (Argon2id + ChaCha20-Poly1305), host keys are TOFU-pinned, sync payloads are end-to-end encrypted, plugins are Ed25519-signature-verified before execution, and there is no telemetry of any kind.

The full security model and the vulnerability disclosure policy live in SECURITY.md. Please report vulnerabilities privately.

Roadmap

Oryxis ships small and often (roughly weekly). This section is forward-looking: items land incrementally as they are ready rather than being tied to a specific version. Latest stable is v0.23.0; CHANGELOG.md has the full history, and the roadmap discussion tracks it interactively.

Planned

• AI ops toolkit: the assistant graduates from generating shell strings to typed, structured operations synthesized for the host's actual OS, with dry-run previews on every state change, an audit journal, and secrets structurally excluded from model context. Local-first, bring-your-own-key, no hosted backend.

Exploring

• Team vaults over P2P sync: share a vault with teammates with no hosted server; per-member key wrapping, re-key on member removal, optional self-hosted relay mailbox for teams never online together.
• Multi-host AI agent: the typed-operation agent detached from a single tab, investigating across vault hosts over ad-hoc SSH channels, gated by explicit per-host opt-in.
• Storage browser plugins: S3-compatible, SMB, and Chinese-cloud object storage (Huawei OBS / Tencent COS / Alibaba OSS) browsing as optional plugins on the existing signed-plugin pipeline.

Building from source

Rust stable (via rustup), plus:

• Linux: sudo apt install -y build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev libgtk-3-dev libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev
• macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
• Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools with the C++ workload

git clone https://github.com/wilsonglasser/oryxis.git
cd oryxis
cargo run             # debug
cargo build --release # release
cargo test --workspace

The workspace layout is documented in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Open an issue to discuss before starting large PRs, and see CONTRIBUTING.md for the dev setup, quality gates and project conventions (i18n, keyboard navigation, secret handling).

License

Copyright (C) 2026 Wilson Glasser. Licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later. Free and open-source forever: anyone can use, modify, and distribute Oryxis, but any modified version made available over a network must also share its source code under the same license. See NOTICE for details.

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Built with Rust, for people who live in the terminal.