SMALL COMMANDER

// Remote files at local speed

A dual-pane file manager for macOS whose remote panes feel like local ones. It speaks SSH directly and never mounts anything, which is the whole reason it is quick.

> ONE FOLDER, OVER THE INTERNET

kernel SMB mount 16 ms RTT (LAN) 6,900 ms
OpenSSH sftp client 44 ms RTT (internet) 570 ms
Small Commander 44 ms RTT (internet) 59.5 ms

Measured 2026-08-11. The bottleneck was never the network — it is the kernel mount, which resolves one path component per round trip and expires its cache in about a second.

> DOWNLOAD

The first build is being notarised. Write to [email protected] and we will tell you the day it lands.

OR WITH HOMEBREW 

brew tap deep-on/tap
brew install --cask small-commander

> WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

  • — No account. No licence key. No sign-up.
  • — No analytics, no crash reporter, no advertising identifier.
  • — No third-party code at all: nothing to keep patched, no supply chain.
  • — Passwords live in the macOS Keychain and are never written to a file, a command line or an environment variable.

Licence, privacy notice and acknowledgements >>