SSH Switch: A Lightweight Open-Source SSH Key Manager

Rohan Parmar — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Every developer eventually faces the same challenge.

You might have a personal GitHub account, a work GitHub account, a few client projects, and several servers. Each one uses a different SSH key.

At first, it seems manageable.

Then one day, you push code using the wrong account.

Or GitHub suddenly rejects authentication because the wrong key is loaded.

Or you spend ten minutes trying to remember which SSH config entry belongs to which project.

I've encountered this more times than I’d like to admit.

After repeating the same manual steps over and over, I decided to create a small tool to simplify the process.

That’s how SSH Switch was developed.

The Problem

Managing multiple SSH identities isn’t difficult.

It’s annoying.

Most developers deal with it using a mix of:

~/.ssh/config

I Got Tired of Managing Multiple SSH Keys, So I Built SSH Switch
ssh-add
Manual key generation
Terminal commands, they often forget

The workflow usually looks like this:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/work_key
ssh-add ~/.ssh/personal_key

ssh -T git@github.com

Or even worse:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Each time I switched contexts, I found myself opening terminal windows and editing configuration files.

The process works.

It’s just not pleasant.

What I Wanted

I wasn’t trying to reinvent SSH.

I wanted a tool that could:

Generate SSH keys
Hold multiple SSH identities
Switch between them easily
Work on different platforms
Offer a clean interface instead of terminal commands

Most importantly, I wanted something I would actually enjoy using.

Building SSH Switch

For the frontend, I chose React and TypeScript.

For the desktop application, I used Tauri.

For the backend, I relied on Rust.

This combination gave me several advantages:

Small application size
Native performance
Low memory use
Secure access to filesystem operations

Tauri was a great choice because SSH management requires interacting with files on the user’s machine, and Rust offers a safe way to handle those operations.

Features

SSH Switch provides everything needed to manage multiple SSH identities from a single interface:

Generate new SSH keys (Ed25519/RSA)
Import existing SSH keys
Manage multiple SSH identities in one place
Switch active SSH keys with a single click
View and organize all configured keys
Copy public keys instantly
Delete unused SSH keys safely
Modern desktop UI built with Tauri, React, and Rust
Lightweight and fast with minimal resource usage
Mac & Linux Support
Open source and community-driven

Why Open Source?

I believe developer tools improve when developers can inspect, question, and contribute to them.

SSH is part of our daily workflow.

Making the code public allows others to:

Review implementation details
Suggest improvements
Report issues
Contribute new features

Open source also helps confirm whether the problem is worth solving.

If other developers find the tool useful, that’s a strong sign that the issue is real.

Try It Out

SSH Switch is completely open source.

GitHub Repository:

https://github.com/therohanparmar/ssh-switch

I welcome your feedback, issues, and contributions.