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Questions, feedback, bug reports, or just want to tell us what you wish RootDeck did? We read everything.
team@rootdeck.appWe are a small team with over 25 years of combined experience in software development and systems administration. We built RootDeck because we wanted a tool we could actually rely on every day - and nothing out there quite fit the bill.
$ cat WHY_WE_BUILT_THIS.md
# The honest answer
We were tired of SSH clients that made us compromise.
Some stored our host configs and keys in a cloud we didn't control.
Some charged a monthly fee just to keep using software we'd already bought.
Some looked polished but fell apart the moment we needed anything beyond
the basics - a jump host, a split pane, a quick file transfer.
We kept patching together different tools. A terminal here, a file browser
there, a separate key manager somewhere else.
So we built the one we always wanted.
-- the RootDeck team
Between us, we have spent decades doing real systems work - managing servers, writing deployment pipelines, responding to incidents at 3 a.m., and generally living in SSH sessions. We are not a startup that hired developers to build a tool they've never personally needed. We are the target user.
That background shapes every decision we make. When we talk about reliability, we mean it in the way that someone who has been paged at 2 a.m. means it - not as a marketing bullet point, but as a genuine requirement. The tool has to work, every time, without drama.
This is not a side experiment or a proof of concept we're shipping and forgetting. RootDeck is our daily driver. Every shortcoming gets noticed. Every rough edge gets filed and eventually fixed. The features that ship are the ones that made our own work meaningfully better.
That also means we are careful about what we add. A feature that looks good in a demo but creates confusion in daily use doesn't ship. We would rather have fewer, more polished capabilities than a sprawling feature list that requires a manual to operate.
We have strong opinions about software that treats user data as inventory. Storing SSH host configs, key passphrases, and connection history in someone else's cloud is a security decision being made on your behalf, without your full understanding of the risk.
RootDeck stores everything locally in open formats - SQLite for configuration, PEM files for keys, OS keychain for passphrases. You can back up your data with a single file copy. You can read it with standard tools. You are never dependent on our servers being up to use your own client.
We are not going to change this. It is the foundation the entire product is built on.
RootDeck is independently built. We are not backed by investors looking for an exit, which means we are not optimizing for growth metrics, user data monetization, or a feature velocity that looks impressive in a deck but ships rough.
We sustain the project through software sales - the one-time license model we've chosen reflects that. When you buy RootDeck, you are directly supporting continued development. There is no advertising business, no data resale, no "freemium" upsell treadmill. Just a team building a tool they care about.
These aren't aspirations - they're decisions we've already made and won't walk back.
A terminal client that crashes or hangs is worse than useless. We ship fewer things, more carefully, and make sure what's there works every time.
SSH keys, host passwords, and passphrases are stored in the OS keychain or in local files you control. Nothing leaves your machine to our servers.
You pay once for a major version and own it. Future major versions will have a discounted upgrade path, but nothing you've bought will stop working.
Your host list is SQLite. Your keys are PEM files. You can move, back up, or inspect your data without our software involved.
We don't over-explain or hide complexity. The interface respects that the person using it knows SSH, knows their infrastructure, and doesn't need a wizard for basic tasks.
We read every email. Bug reports, feature ideas, complaints about things that don't work right - all of it is useful and we genuinely want to hear it.
Questions, feedback, bug reports, or just want to tell us what you wish RootDeck did? We read everything.
team@rootdeck.app