Sofa vs Remote Buddy Mobile 2
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sofa
Control your Mac or Linux computer remotely from your iPhone or iPad. Launch apps, open files, navigate menus, and manage system functions like volume and power. It offers custom controls for popular applications and websites.
- Launch and quit applications
- Open files remotely
- Navigate menus and edit text
- Control system functions (volume, brightness)
- Custom controls for popular apps/websites
- Lock, sleep, restart, and shutdown computer
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Control your Mac from your iPhone or iPad with Sofa's simple and effective user interface. - Launch apps, quit, minimise, go fullscreen - Open files on your Mac or your Linux box with the default or another associated app - Navigate through lists, press buttons and edit text - Access menu commands - Hand-crafted controls for the most popular apps and websites - Adjust volume and display brightness - Lock the screen, put to sleep, restart and shutdown your computer All this while in couch-potato mode or doing a presentation. Sofa supports interaction with the most popular applications and websites: - Apple apps: Music, TV, Books, Photos, Preview, Photo Booth, Finder, ... - Chrome, Safari, Firefox, VLC, MPV, IINA, Skype, ... - YouTube, YouTube Music, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Spotify, SoundCloud, Vimeo and more! In order to connect, you need the free Sofa Server running on your Mac. Get it at http://tordini.org/sofa
Remote Buddy Mobile 2
Control your Mac from your iPhone or iPad. Use it as a trackpad, keyboard, or for app-specific controls and media playback. Mirror your Mac's screen and manage power functions remotely.
- Remote control for 100+ Mac apps
- Multi-touch trackpad with Mousespot
- Web video playback control
- Screen mirroring up to 60fps
- Keyboard and numpad input
- Power actions and Wake-On-LAN
- Secure TLS connection
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Control your Mac, with your iPhone or iPad acting as trackpad, keyboard, mirrored display and powerful remote control for 100+ Mac apps. Watch web videos and streaming services in Safari or Google Chrome and control playback, speed and volume from the comfort of your couch. Use the built-in, high performance screen sharing to mirror your screen on your device's display and control your Mac from another room. Deliver your presentations with confidence using the multitouch trackpad and its elegant Mousespot highlight. Launch, switch and quit apps - or pick from Remote Buddy's huge library of 1.200+ actions for 100+ popular Mac apps, right from your device. Remote Buddy Mobile is the mobile companion app for Remote Buddy, the remote control app for your Mac. KEY FEATURES • Remote Control Control 100+ popular Mac apps with 1.200+ tailor-made actions. • Multi-touch Trackpad with Mousespot Click, drag, scroll, switch spaces or invoke Mission Control. Want to highlight parts of your presentations? Or looking for the mouse pointer? Remote Buddy's Mousespot spotlight effect is just a tap away! • Shortcut Bar The configurable shortcut bar provides quick access to essential actions for the controlled app in the Remote and Trackpad modes. • Smart Remote Fusing the best parts of remote, trackpad and shortcut bar into a single, app-specific view, Smart Remote puts everything needed to control an app within reach. • Web Video Control Control playback, speed and volume of almost all web videos - without having to fiddle with controls in the browser. Works with YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, tv.apple.com, Vimeo and many more in Safari and Google Chrome. • Screen Sharing Instantly see your Mac's screen, with up to 60 frames per second. Supports zooming, dragging, clicking, scrolling, multiple displays and more. • Actions and App Control Pick from Remote Buddy's huge library of 1.200+ app-specific actions; launch, switch and quit apps right from your device. Favorite frequently used apps and actions for quick access. • Keyboard and Numpad Type text and numbers into browsers, search fields, editors, spreadsheets and more. Supports modifiers, cursor keys, the iOS keyboard's dictation feature, password manager integration and more. • Power Actions and Wake-On-LAN Save power by putting your Mac to sleep - and wake it up later through Wake-On-LAN. Or initiate a reboot or shut down right from the app. • Audio Settings Change your system's default audio output to a different device or AirPlay target. Control its volume and mute status where supported. • Connection secured with TLS Support for the new Secure Connection feature of Remote Buddy 2.0, keeping your connection private through strong, certificate-based TLS 1.2 encryption. SUPPORTED APPS Some of the Mac apps that Remote Buddy for Mac and – thereby – Remote Buddy Mobile can control out of the box: Acrobat Pro, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Reader, AirFoil, Aperture, Audio Hijack 3, Audirvana, Books, Broadcasts, Calendar, Deckset, DVD Player, Elmedia Video Player, EyeTV, FlexTime, Firefox, GarageBand, Google Chrome, Impress (OpenOffice.org & LibreOffice), iPhoto, iTunes, Keynote, Kodi, Lightroom 1/2/3/4/5/Classic/CC, Mac Blu-Ray Player, Movist, Music, OpenPHT, Photo Booth, Photos, Plex for Mac, Plex Media Player, Podcasts, PowerPoint, Preview, QuickTime Player, Roon, Safari, Skim, Spotify, TV.app, VoodooPad, VLC, XBMC, Yojimbo A complete list of supported apps is available at the Remote Buddy website. If you want us to add support for an app that's not listed there, please let us know through the contact form of our website. HOST REQUIREMENTS Requires a Mac running Remote Buddy 2.0 or later. Remote Buddy 2.0 requires macOS 10.12 or later. Licenses for Remote Buddy for the Mac are sold separately and not part of this app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Remote Buddy Mobile 2 at 4.6 against Sofa's 3.5. Remote Buddy Mobile 2 also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 2) and ratings volume (34 vs 2). Sofa's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs every 12 months). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Sofa sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Remote Buddy Mobile 2 asks for nothing beyond the download.
Remote Buddy Mobile 2 holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Remote Buddy Mobile 2 has 34 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of Sofa's written reviews are positive against 75% of Remote Buddy Mobile 2's.
Sofa ships an update every 4 days, Remote Buddy Mobile 2 every 12 months. The most recent releases landed on October 4, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sofa | Remote Buddy Mobile 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (2 ratings) | 4.6 (34 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 75.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 34 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 12 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 27 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Flavio Tordini | IOSPIRIT GmbH |
Customer experience
Sofa
Remote Buddy Mobile 2
In-app purchases
Sofa
- 10-day TrialFree
- Sofa Pro$4.99
Remote Buddy Mobile 2
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Sofa free?
Is Remote Buddy Mobile 2 free?
Which has better reviews, Sofa or Remote Buddy Mobile 2?
Do Sofa or Remote Buddy Mobile 2 have ads?
Which is updated more often, Sofa or Remote Buddy Mobile 2?
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