Comparison

LocalDevVPN vs JS Shell

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

LocalDevVPN

Create and manage secure, isolated local network tunnels on iOS. Test and debug applications without sending traffic to external servers, offering precise control over your network environment.

Highlights
  • Local network tunneling
  • Custom network configuration
  • One-touch connection
  • Auto-connect option
  • Connection monitoring
  • Comprehensive logging
Features
Read full description

LocalDevVPN is a developer tool for creating and managing local network tunnels directly on iOS. It gives you a secure, isolated virtual interface for testing and debugging without sending traffic to external servers. Key Features: - Local network tunneling: spin up a dedicated virtual interface for development and testing - Custom network configuration: set device IP, tunnel IP, and subnet mask - One-touch connection: quick connect/disconnect with clear status - Auto-connect: optionally start the tunnel when the app launches - Connection monitoring: track connection time and live status - Comprehensive logging: review detailed connection logs for troubleshooting Ideal for developers, network engineers, and testers who need precise control over a local network environment. All traffic stays on-device with no data collection or external connections. Requires iOS 14.0 or later.

About

JS Shell

Features
Read full description

JS Shell is a pocket-sized developer console that lets you write, run, and test web code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) directly on iOS and macOS. No Xcode, no laptop, no remote server. Paste a page in, tap run, and it loads in a real WKWebView served from a local HTTP origin. A real secure-context origin on iOS, so modern web APIs — from WebRTC to Geolocation — behave the way they should. KEY FEATURES Local HTTP server. An in-process server bound to the loopback interface. Provides a real secure-context origin so modern Web APIs work out of the box. Not reachable from outside the device. JavaScript REPL. A full JavaScript runtime backed by JavaScriptCore. Type js to enter the REPL. console.log, fetch, setTimeout, setInterval, Promises, and async await are all available. Real Promises, real microtasks, real JSON parsing, real URL parsing. Geolocation support. Test navigator.geolocation on a real iOS device. Permissions are handled by the system, just like Safari. Useful for validating location-based web features without deploying to a server. Persistent file system. Files you paste live in your Documents directory and survive app restarts. Each downloaded package gets its own directory. iCloud backup picks them up like any other app data. SQLite key-value store. A real B-tree on disk via SQLite. Read and write from your pages with same-origin fetch. No CORS configuration required. curl. A subset of curl built on URLSession. The flags X, H, d, i, I, o, A, m, v are supported. Pretty-prints JSON responses and saves binary blobs to the virtual filesystem. Archive extraction. In-process tar, tar.gz, tgz, gz, and zip extraction. No shelling out. Download a release tarball with curl, extract it, and run it immediately. Voice commands. Tap the mic, speak a command. Apple Speech framework converts speech to text. Auto-submits on detected silence. Voice commands are saved to the scripts list for one-tap re-run. Saved scripts. Save any sequence of commands as a named script. One-tap to re-run later. Voice-recognized commands are auto-saved to the scripts list for instant replay. Mac Catalyst support. Runs natively on macOS as a Mac Catalyst app. Multi-window, resizable, fullscreen-capable. The same code that runs on your iPhone runs on your Mac. DESIGNED FOR DEVELOPERS JS Shell is a tool for people who want to test web code on a real iOS device without installing Xcode, syncing files, or setting up a tunnel. It is especially useful for: Testing geolocation, camera, and microphone permission flows on iOS. Validating fetch, CORS, and cookie behavior on a real iPhone. Building small offline web tools that need persistent state. Running JavaScript snippets without opening Safari Inspector. Debugging mobile rendering edge cases on the device itself. PRIVACY JS Shell does not collect any user data. There is no telemetry, no ads, no analytics, no third-party SDKs, no remote configuration. Everything you type, paste, or download stays on your device. The local HTTP server only listens on the loopback interface and is not reachable from any network. The app forwards camera, microphone, speech recognition, and location permissions to web pages you load, exactly like Safari does on macOS. The first time a page tries to use them, iOS shows the standard system permission prompt. The first time a page tries to use them, iOS shows the standard system permission prompt.

Screenshots

LocalDevVPN3 screens
JS Shell3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is chart position: LocalDevVPN at #4 against JS Shell's unranked. LocalDevVPN also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
LocalDevVPN versus JS Shell: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLocalDevVPNJS Shell
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (126 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews90.6% of reviews—
Number of ratings126 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
Best chart rank#4 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS14.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB6 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperCoxson Engineering LLCJowb Inc.

In-app purchases

None

LocalDevVPN

No in-app purchases

None

JS Shell

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is LocalDevVPN free?
LocalDevVPN is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is JS Shell free?
JS Shell is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do LocalDevVPN or JS Shell have ads?
Neither LocalDevVPN nor JS Shell shows ads.

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