Agent Approve vs Shellby
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Agent Approve
Monitor and control AI agents from your wrist or phone. Approve or deny commands with a single tap, ensuring safety and efficiency. Protect your work from destructive AI actions with customizable policies.
- Approve/deny commands from wrist or phone
- Centralized policy management
- Compound command parsing
- Full command observability
- Readable command rendering
- End-to-end encryption
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You're racing to ship. If your agents are idle, you're not gonna make it. Every pending approval is wasted time. So you're chained to your laptop, all day and night. This isn't the AI future we were promised – go out and enjoy life. Agent Approve brings observability & control to your wrist: track AI agent activity, protect yourself with policy, and approve with a tap, wherever life takes you. HOW IT WORKS Agent Approve uses the hooks already built into your agent and coding tools, so you don't have to change how you work. When an agent goes to run a command or call a tool, it's encrypted on your machine and sent through our cloud relay, where it's evaluated against policy. Compound commands are separated to catch hidden destructive commands. Matches to your deny list or allow list are handled immediately. Those that need review are pushed to your iPhone or Apple Watch. When it reaches you, you see the full command, tap approve or deny, and can add it to your allow or deny list so you're never asked again. Everything is end-to-end encrypted: you own your data and keys. WHY IT MATTERS Some commands have no undo. Agents have wiped production databases, deleted home directories, and force-pushed away weeks of work – usually in seconds, while no one was watching. And the agents you can't see are the ones that bite: a scheduled task that drifts, a retry loop that burns thousands in tokens overnight, or a helpful agent sharing secrets with a bad actor. Agent Approve ships with a Restrictive policy that blocks 250+ destructive commands out of the box, a Permissive policy that auto-approves common safe commands, and you can always build your own. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO STAY IN CONTROL • Approve from your wrist or phone – one tap, wherever you are. • Centralized policy – allow, deny, or ask, with 250+ destructive patterns blocked out of the box. • Compound-command parsing – catches the dangerous command hidden inside a scripted command sequence. • Full observability – every command, tool call, and action in one live feed, including subagents and agent profiles (each Hermes profile shows up as its own agent). • Readable at a glance – commands, plans, and tool payloads render as formatted markdown and JSON, not a wall of raw text. • Interactive Q&A – review the agent's plan, and answer questions from your phone (limited support). • Completion alerts + follow-ups – know the moment an agent finishes, then send its next move by voice or a quick reply. • Privacy tiers & retention – choose how much of each command is stored (tool name, short summary, or full content) and how long to keep it. • End-to-end encryption – you own your data and your keys, with optional key rotation for forward secrecy. WORKS WITH EVERY AGENT YOU USE Agent Approve runs on the hooks already native to your coding tools. Where there isn't one, we ship a plugin. 14 agents and counting, including: Antigravity, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Hermes, OpenClaw, OpenCode, OpenHands, Pi, VS Code Copilot, and Windsurf. It's the only cross-platform AI agent observability and control layer on your wrist. TRY BEFORE YOU COMMIT Tap "Try Demo" on the welcome screen to explore the full approval flow with sample data – no account or agent required. To try with your own agents, run 'npx agentapprove' on your computer. It installs the hooks or plugins for the agents you select, and walks you through pairing – scan the QR code, hit Subscribe, and start a 7-day free trial before you're charged. — Agent Approve requires an auto-renewable subscription after a 7-day free trial. • Agent Approve Monthly – $14.99/month • Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. • Subscription auto-renews unless turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the period. • Manage or cancel anytime in Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions. • Privacy Policy: https://www.agentapprove.com/privacy • Terms of Use: https://www.agentapprove.com/terms
Shellby
A native SSH client for Apple devices that offers SFTP, tunnels, and server monitoring. It features an AI assistant to translate plain language tasks into commands and Mosh-compatible transport for resilient sessions.
- AI-powered command generation
- Mosh-compatible sessions
- SFTP file transfer
- Port forwarding and tunnels
- Server monitoring (CPU, memory)
- On-screen key bar
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Shellby is a modern, native SSH client for iPhone, iPad, and Mac — one app, one experience across all your Apple devices. It does more than connect: a built-in AI agent turns plain-language ops tasks into commands you approve one by one, Mosh-compatible transport keeps sessions alive across network changes, and on Mac your AI coding tools reach your servers read-only, fully audited. Built for developers, sysadmins, and anyone who manages remote servers. No account, no tracking. AI ASSISTANT & AGENT (BRING YOUR OWN KEY) • Describe an ops task in plain language — the agent plans and runs it step by step • Every command passes an approval gate; destructive ones need explicit confirmation — nothing runs behind your back • Customizable allow/deny lists; approve & allowlist in one tap • Standard chat-completion APIs, so you pick the service — DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, Qwen, or a local Ollama model • Off by default; bring your own key and endpoint — no AI service is built in EXTERNAL AGENTS — MCP (macOS) • Let claude-code, codex, and other MCP clients use hosts you already configured — no passwords, keys, or jump-host setup handed over • Read-only: list hosts, run read-only commands, read files, fetch metrics; mutating commands are refused with a reason • Loopback only, token-checked per request, token in the Keychain, every call audited • Runs only while Shellby is open — no background daemon MOSH-COMPATIBLE CONNECTIONS • Switch Wi-Fi to cellular, roam, ride through a tunnel — the session survives and resumes instantly • Typing stays responsive even on slow, high-latency links • Connection test detects a missing mosh-server and gives install steps for your distro TERMINAL • Fast, standards-compliant terminal (xterm-256color) • Password and SSH key authentication (Ed25519 / RSA / OpenSSH) • On-screen key bar: Esc, Tab, Ctrl combos, arrows, symbols • Full hardware-keyboard mapping on iPad and Mac • Terminal themes and font size • Scrollback buffer up to 50,000 lines SNIPPETS & COMMAND TOOLBAR • Save commands you use daily; run, insert, or copy them from a toolbar above the terminal • Shell syntax highlighting and line numbers; review before running DESKTOP-CLASS ON MAC & iPAD • Three-column layout: hosts, sessions, and content each in place • Multiple windows and session tabs, with live terminal previews • Split view, and command broadcast — type once, send to many sessions • Native menu bar, shortcuts, and window toolbar on Mac FILES (SFTP) • Browse, upload, download, rename, move, delete, create folders • One transfer queue both ways — progress, resume, choice of destination • Drag & drop on Mac; notification when background transfers finish • Integrates with the Files app PORT FORWARDING & TUNNELS • Local (-L), remote (-R), and dynamic SOCKS5 (-D) forwarding • Jump hosts / ProxyJump (-J) with multi-hop chains • Standalone tunnels that stay up and auto-reconnect, with live bandwidth • For reaching services inside your own server network (databases, internal dashboards) — not for bypassing network restrictions SERVER MONITOR • Live CPU, memory, swap, disk, load, and top processes SYNC — YOUR DATA, YOUR STORAGE • Optional iCloud sync of hosts, groups, and rules (CloudKit); passwords and keys only via the end-to-end-encrypted iCloud Keychain • Or bring your own storage: hosts, keys, snippets, AI settings & chats via any WebDAV or S3-compatible service you control • Pair a new device by scanning a QR code SECURITY & PRIVACY • Credentials stored only in the device Keychain — never in plaintext • Host fingerprint verification (TOFU), with a strong warning if one ever changes • Face ID / Touch ID app lock • No account, no tracking, no data collection You bring your own SSH servers; Shellby connects only to machines you own or are authorized to access. Languages: English, 简体中文, 繁體中文. Privacy Policy: https://shellby.app.mahui.me/privacy/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Shellby at 100% against Agent Approve's 33%. Shellby also leads on update cadence (every 11 days vs every 2 months). Agent Approve's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and chart position (#199 vs unranked). On price, ads, monetization model and device support 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. Shellby sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Agent Approve asks for nothing beyond the download.
Agent Approve ships an update every 2 months, Shellby every 11 days. Both last shipped on October 2, 2026.
| Parameter | Agent Approve | Shellby |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 11 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Best chart rank | #199 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Agent Approve LLC | 荟 马 |
Customer experience
Agent Approve
Shellby
In-app purchases
Agent Approve
No in-app purchases
Shellby
- Pro Monthly$1.991 Month
- Pro Yearly7 Days trial$9.991 Year
- Pro Lifetime$29.99









