I love the command line because it’s direct and gives you control with no clutter or clicks. But control seemed to vanish the moment I needed to share what I was doing with someone. The options were sharing my entire screen or asking them to reproduce my setup. It always like felt there should be a less complicated way to show someone my terminal without teaching them SSH or setting up remote access.

Then I discovered ttyd, with which I was able to turn my Linux shell into a live, shareable session in less than 30 seconds. It didn’t need plugins or extra configuration. While understanding commands like find, nano, or less makes the terminal less daunting, ttyd makes the command line more approachable.

What makes ttyd so different

A web terminal that turns your shell into a live, shareable session

ttyd feels magical in a sense, bridging the command line and a browser—two worlds that usually don’t meet. This simple command-line utility turns your local terminal into a fully interactive web app, accessible from a URL.

There are a few options, like Wetty or GateOne, that offer the same service, but ttyd doesn’t require the heavy application stack needed to run. It uses fewer resources than these alternatives, and it’s a lightweight, direct solution that streams terminal output in real time—no IDE required.

From terminal to browser in one command

How I shared my live shell in under a minute

I installed ttyd with a single command. Depending on your distro, one of the commands below should work:

| Fedora/CentOS/RHEL | ```
sudo dnf install ttyd

(or yum for older versions) | | Arch Linux | ``` sudo pacman -S ttyd

Once installed, I share my terminal by running the command below and opening the URL provided in my browser:

ttyd -writable bash

If you get an error while launching ttyd, running the command below and specifying a port should fix it:

ttyd -writable -p 9090 bash

In seconds, I have a fully functional, live terminal session accessible via a simple web URL\.

However, it doesn’t only work with your basic bash\. This command-line tool automatically wraps any command-line program\. So,** ttyd bash** turns the browser into a Linux terminal, but you may run **ttyd python** or** ttyd htop** to turn your browser into a Python programming environment or a live system performance monitor, respectively\.

Under the hood, ttyd streams the output of a pseudo-terminal over WebSocket connections\. To stop sharing, you simply hit **Ctrl \+ C**\. Once the session drops, no data lingers\. It’s clean, and I always use it when I need to give quick, disposable access\.

## Sharing your terminal safely

### Authentication, HTTPS, and other essential safeguards

Terminal sharing with ttyd is effortless, but you still need to treat it as a real shell\. Adding authentication with the command below was an important step for me\. This flag below guarantees that only people with the credentials can connect:

ttyd –credential user:password bash

If I need to run a public demo, I bind ttyd to localhost on the remote server and then forward the port to my local machine through an SSH tunnel using the command below:

ssh -L 7681:localhost:7681 user@server

You can use the **--ssl** and **--ssl-cert **flags to enable HTTPS with a self-signed certificate, though tunneling over SSH is usually enough for short sessions\. Avoid running ttyd as root—it grants full system control to anyone connected\. Instead, start it in a restricted shell or sandboxed environment to keep sessions contained and secure\.

## When a web terminal is the right tool

### The balance between convenience, control, and exposure

Turning your local terminal into a shared web session is undeniably elegant\. However, it may not always be the right approach, and that’s part of ttyd’s charm\. For multi-user or persistent remote terminal access, [tmate](https://github.com/tmate-io/tmate) or plain SSH would be better-suited\.

ttyd is fast, but it operates over WebSockets and can be limited by your browser’s performance\. Native SSH will typically offer lower latency for tasks like real-time, high-throughput log analysis or when using visually intense terminal graphics to complete tasks requiring extreme speed\. Also, while SSH typically only requires port 22, ttyd requires opening a specific, non-standard port \(like 7681\)\.

Still, nothing works better than ttyd if you want a visual solution that’s fast and disposable\. It’s also the perfect tool for demoing scripts, teaching admins, or in cases where you prefer not to hand out SSH credentials\.

ttyd isn’t trying to do too much\. It’s not replacing a cloud IDE or full remote session manager\. It’s a simple, fast, and efficient bridge between shell and browser\. [Tools like this make Linux more approachable, especially if you're switching from Windows](https://www.makeuseof.com/these-apps-made-switching-from-windows-to-linux-painless/)\.

### Turning visibility into collaboration

I've talked about how easy it is to share the shell using ttyd\. However, what surprised me the most was how versatile the tool became as soon as I started experimenting beyond basic command-line sharing\. I can pipe script output to it and use it to expose log monitors\. It even lets me create minimal dashboards for services running on a headless system\.

The terminal is sometimes perceived as raw, but using ttyd expands its power into contexts where GUIs generally dominate\. I've been searching for great Linux tools lately\. [I found a tool for browsing privately](https://www.makeuseof.com/linux-tool-for-private-browsing-that-isnt-vpn-or-tor/), and now I can add ttyd to my arsenal for terminal sharing\.