What live demos and in-browser services does Browsh offer?

Updated

Browsh provides three hosted ways to try it without installing anything: an SSH demo at brow.sh, an HTML service at html.brow.sh, and a plain-text service at text.brow.sh. As of the site's current notice, the SSH demo and the in-browser services are marked "Temporarily offline," so treat them as things to check rather than guaranteed working endpoints. For anything beyond a quick look, the site itself recommends installing Browsh on your own server.

SSH demo: ssh brow.sh

The live SSH demo is the closest thing to the real terminal experience. You point your SSH client at the host:

ssh brow.sh

What to expect, based on the site's description:

  • No authentication — no account or key is needed.
  • Sessions last 5 minutes, after which they end.
  • Sessions are logged. This is a demonstration service, not a private browsing environment, so don't use it for anything sensitive.
  • It is for demonstration only, not for regular use.

One caveat the site raises directly: SSH is a very inefficient protocol for this kind of rendering. For best results, the recommendation is to install Browsh on your own server and pair it with Mosh instead of plain SSH.

In-browser services

Two HTTP-based services exist for cases where you can't or don't want to open an SSH session.

html.brow.sh

  • Uses very basic graphics and HTML anchor tags.
  • The site notes it does not yet have feature parity with the terminal client — it may look similar, but it can't do everything the terminal version does.

Use this when you want something visual in a normal browser tab and can accept reduced functionality.

text.brow.sh

  • Uses nothing but pure text.
  • The site calls it better for use with tools like curl, for example.

This is the option to pick for scripting, piping, or any environment where only text output makes sense.

Choosing between them

Service Access method Output Best for
brow.sh SSH Full terminal rendering Trying the real interactive experience
html.brow.sh Web browser Basic graphics + HTML anchors Visual browsing without SSH; reduced features
text.brow.sh HTTP / curl Pure text Scripts, pipes, text-only environments

Practical notes

  • All three are hosted conveniences. The site's own guidance is that the best results come from running Browsh yourself, ideally with Mosh rather than SSH.
  • Because the demo and in-browser services are listed as temporarily offline, verify availability before relying on them; if they're down, the download page (v1.8.0, a single static binary, with a Docker image at browsh/browsh) is the fallback path.
  • The 5-minute limit and session logging apply to the SSH demo specifically — plan around them rather than treating it as a persistent session.