Skink vs VS Code Remote SSH

A real shell in a tab, one key away from your file.

VS Code Remote SSH runs the VS Code UI on your computer and installs a VS Code Server on the remote host. Skink is a terminal editor you run on the remote host itself, inside a normal SSH session.

Pick VS Code Remote when you want the full VS Code experience and extensions. Pick Skink when you want something that works from any terminal, on minimal or small machines, with nothing to install locally.

Who should pick VS Code Remote SSH

Extensions. You already use VS Code and depend on its extensions (Python, Jupyter, a specific linter UI). Skink has no plugins yet.
A GUI. Image previews, notebooks, a rich diff view, drag and drop.
Regular hosts. Your remote machines run glibc-based Linux, macOS or Windows and have RAM to spare.
Maturity. You want a mature tool. Skink is alpha.

Who should pick Skink

No VS Code on your side. You connect from a tablet SSH app, a jump host, a borrowed machine or a web console.
Small or unusual hosts. Alpine or other musl-based Linux, a Raspberry Pi, a container, a VM with 512 MB of RAM. Skink’s Linux builds are static (musl) and use about 8 MB of RAM when idle.
tmux. You want SSH sessions you can put in tmux and come back to later.
One tool everywhere. It behaves the same locally and remotely.

Feature comparison

	Skink	VS Code Remote SSH
Where the UI runs	In your terminal, drawn by the remote process	Local VS Code app
Needs locally	Any terminal + SSH client	VS Code + Remote-SSH extension + SSH client
Needs on the host	One static binary in `~/.local/bin`	VS Code Server (installed automatically); glibc 2.17+, bash, tar, curl or wget
Alpine / musl hosts	Yes	Not supported
Host RAM	About 8 MB idle, plus language servers	At least 1 GB recommended (2 GB suggested)
Editing model	Modeless	Modeless
Mouse	Yes	Yes
LSP	Built in, servers on the host	Through extensions on the host
Built-in terminal	Terminal tabs on the host	Integrated terminal on the host
Git	Built in	Built in
Debugger	Built in (gdb, lldb, debugpy, Delve on the host)	Through extensions
AI agents	ACP agents on the host	Copilot and extensions
Extensions	None yet	Very large marketplace
Runs inside tmux or screen on the host	Yes	No
Maturity	Alpha	Mature

RAM and platform requirements for VS Code are from Microsoft’s Remote SSH documentation.

Setup, side by side

VS Code Remote SSH

Install VS Code locally and add the Remote-SSH extension.
Run “Remote-SSH: Connect to Host…” and wait for the server to download.
Install the extensions you need on the remote side.

Skink

ssh you@server
curl -fsSL https://skink.cc/install.sh | sh
skink ~/project

No sudo, no daemon, nothing left running when you quit. Language servers you have installed on the host (rust-analyzer, gopls, pyright, typescript-language-server, zls, Dart) start on first use.

Clipboard and mouse over SSH

Both work. In Skink, copying sends the text to your local clipboard with the OSC 52 escape sequence, which most modern terminals accept.

To paste from your local clipboard, use your terminal’s paste shortcut (for example Ctrl+Shift+V or Cmd+V). Skink receives it as one bracketed paste. Details in copy and paste over SSH.

Mouse events are plain escape sequences too, so clicks, drags and scrolling travel through SSH and tmux like keystrokes. See mouse and trackpad.

What you lose

Being honest about it: VS Code’s extension marketplace, notebooks and polished GUI are much bigger than anything Skink has.

If your remote work is heavy Python data science with notebooks, or needs a specific extension, VS Code Remote is the better tool. Skink is for when you want a capable editor that goes wherever SSH goes.

Try it

curl -fsSL https://skink.cc/install.sh | sh

Then read edit files on a remote server without a GUI and the SSH guide.