Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Blink Shell VS gow

Compare Blink Shell VS gow and see what are their differences

Blink Shell logo Blink Shell

Super-fast and highly configurable, professional-grade terminal for iOS.

gow logo gow

Gow (Gnu On Windows) is the lightweight alternative to Cygwin.
  • Blink Shell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-13
  • gow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-04

Blink Shell features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Blink Shell is available on multiple platforms, including iOS and macOS, making it accessible for users across different devices.
  • Mosh Support
    Blink Shell supports Mosh (mobile shell), providing a more robust SSH experience with better performance over wireless and unstable connections.
  • Customization
    Users can customize Blink Shell extensively, including themes, fonts, and layouts, allowing for a personalized experience.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The app offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, making it approachable for both novice and experienced users.
  • Local Terminal Access
    Besides SSH access, Blink Shell also offers a local terminal, allowing users to perform tasks directly on their device.

Possible disadvantages of Blink Shell

  • Paid Application
    Blink Shell is a paid app, which might not be suitable for users looking for a free alternative.
  • Limited to Apple Ecosystem
    While it is cross-platform within Apple's ecosystem, it lacks availability on other platforms like Android or Windows.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly design, users unfamiliar with terminal applications may still face a learning curve.
  • Dependence on iOS/macOS Features
    Some functionalities might be tied to the specific features of iOS and macOS, potentially limiting customization or performance based on the device.
  • Security Concerns
    As with any application that interfaces with remote servers, users must ensure their security protocols are robust to avoid compromising sensitive data.

gow features and specs

  • Lightweight
    Gow is a lightweight package that provides essential Unix command line utilities for Windows. It doesn't require a lot of system resources and is easy to install.
  • Convenience
    By bringing many familiar Unix commands to Windows, it makes it more convenient for users who frequently switch between Unix/Linux and Windows environments.
  • No Dependencies
    Gow does not rely on additional software or complex dependencies, making it straightforward to set up and use.
  • Portable
    It's designed to be portable, meaning you can easily add it to different Windows systems without much hassle.

Possible disadvantages of gow

  • Limited Command Set
    Compared to full Unix/Linux environments or more comprehensive tools like Cygwin, Gow offers a limited set of commands, which might not satisfy all user needs.
  • No Ongoing Updates
    The project is not actively maintained, and some commands may not be updated to include the latest features or security patches.
  • Compatibility Issues
    There might be compatibility issues or limitations when using certain commands or scripts that expect a full Unix environment.
  • No Native Shell Integration
    Unlike some Unix emulation environments, Gow doesn't provide a complete Unix shell experience on Windows, which could limit usability for some tasks.

Blink Shell videos

Blink Shell: Mosh and SSH Review

More videos:

  • Review - iPadOS Terminal App Overview: Termius vs Blink Shell - Generating SSH keys
  • Tutorial - HOW TO USE BLINK SHELL ON IOS TO ACCESS GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM TO PROGRAM ON AN IPAD

gow videos

No gow videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Blink Shell and gow)
Terminal Tools
74 74%
26% 26
SSH
73 73%
27% 27
Server Management
61 61%
39% 39
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Blink Shell and gow

Blink Shell Reviews

10 Termux Alternatives
Blink Shell is a platform that creates and builds blink to support the Linux shell environment and UNIX terminal with the best SSH and mosh services included. Developers of this software didn’t add unnecessary features and had all the desired programs and commands to navigate their files quickly and comfortably. This is the best platform to access and perform your work from...

gow Reviews

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Blink Shell should be more popular than gow. It has been mentiond 40 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Blink Shell mentions (40)

  • Maker of RStudio launches new R and Python IDE
    Hosted vs code server is what I used to use: https://github.com/coder/code-server. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Run VSCode and terminal on any iOS device
    $20 a year https://blink.sh/#choose-package. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says
    You can work on it https://blink.sh/ see also https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Apple debuts iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
    You can already do that with an iPad (sans fat OS). If you're using Blink Shell (https://blink.sh) the external display is independent of what's on the iPad too, which works really neatly. This is the exact setup I used as my main dev machine in a previous role. Would be very nice to see if this works on the new iPhones. A thin client with decent security in your pocket with keyboard/mouse/display at both home and... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
    I use blink[0] with a 40% keyboard to develop linux program on a vps. If you want to do programming without wireless interenet, another option is to connect a raspberry pi zero 2w (with usb gadget mode enabled) to the usb c port using a single usb cable. Then the rpi zero will share a ethernet network with iOS device. Then you can use blink (again) to mosh to raspberrypi.local to do the development on the pi. The... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

gow mentions (4)

  • The world if Windows was POSIX compliant
    And if need so much something like this, you can always use WSL or GOW (https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow). Source: about 2 years ago
  • how the fuck does this make any sense?
    Use gow, and WindTerm; and if you want an even better experience install lsd, fd, and lf all of which are downloadable via Chocolatey, the Windows package manager. Source: over 2 years ago
  • If Fuchsia eventually makes its way into the desktop/laptop space, do you think it will support Linux-like commands for the terminal?
    ¹ Bash was ported natively, zsh runs through mingw quite well. ² https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Limit image count number by deleting old image tags via FIFO-principle?
    Ah, you're on Windows, so you don't have those utilities. Looks like these days, folks are using GoW (GNU on Windows) to install some useful GNU utilities on Windows machines: https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Blink Shell and gow, you can also consider the following products

Termux - Terminal emulator and Linux environment for Android

MSYS2 - A Cygwin-derived software distro for Windows using Arch Linux's Pacman

Android Terminal Emulator - Android-Terminal-Emulator - A VT-100 terminal emulator for the Android OS

Cygwin - Cygwin is a set of tools that provide Linux and POSIX functionality to Windows.

iSH - The Linux shell on iOS.

BusyBox - BusyBox is a single binary that provides several stripped-down Unix tools in a single executable.