I’ve been a Core Shell user for several years now, and I genuinely appreciate the product and how it has evolved. It’s been reliable, clean, and one of the better SSH clients on macOS.
That’s why this recent change is honestly disappointing.
Restricting users to a single connection at a time in the Basic plan doesn’t feel like a “feature limitation” it removes a fundamental workflow. Opening 2 terminals side by side is not an advanced use case. It’s the baseline for anyone doing real work: debugging, monitoring logs, deploying, comparing environments, etc.
Putting that behind a Premium paywall feels misaligned.
I fully understand and support monetization, especially for a product that continues to improve. But gating something this essential makes the free tier significantly less usable, to the point where it’s hard to justify continuing with it in daily work.
There’s a difference between:
limiting advanced features (fair), and
restricting core functionality (problematic)
Right now, this change leans toward the latter.
I’m saying this as a long-time user who wants to keep using Core Shell. I hope the team reconsiders where this line is drawn, because this decision impacts not just casual users, but the core audience that helped the product grow.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, and thank you for being a long-time user of the app. I really appreciate your support over the years.
I completely understand why this change is disappointing.
The ability for free Basic version to open multiple shell connections was actually an unintended behavior that had existed for quite some time. It wasn't meant to be available in the free Basic version, but because it had been there for so long, I understand that it became part of your normal workflow.
When defining the Premium features, I chose to include multiple concurrent shell connections because it is one of the capabilities that many power users rely on every day. Features like sync and scripting are certainly valuable as well, but they aren't the only features that distinguish the Premium version.
I understand that you may have a different view of which features should be paid, and I genuinely appreciate you sharing that feedback. Decisions about where to draw the line between the free Basic and Premium versions are always difficult, and user feedback like yours is something I do take into consideration for future releases.
Developing and maintaining an app like this requires continuous work, and the Premium version helps make that ongoing development sustainable.
Thank you again for your honesty and for supporting the app over the years.
