Comparison

Onepilot vs Shell Drop

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

Head to head
About

Onepilot

Access your servers and AI coding agents from your phone. Manage files, run scheduled tasks, and control AI agents like Claude Code, OpenClaw, and Hermes on the go. Pick up your work from anywhere with a real terminal experience.

Highlights
  • Real terminal on your phone
  • Browse and upload files
  • AI coding agents integration
  • Schedule agents and tasks
  • Manage agents across machines
  • Agent customization and marketplace
Features
Read full description

Your servers and your AI agents, in your pocket. Onepilot is the iOS app that runs your AI agents and server fleet on machines you own. Connect to any server, Mac, or VPS over SSH, then deploy, monitor, and manage agents across all of them from one place. Direct SSH to hardware you control: your keys and your code never touch the cloud. WHO IT IS FOR For developers, indie hackers, and sysadmins who run AI coding agents on remote machines and want to deploy, watch, and control them from a phone. PILLAR ONE: A REAL TERMINAL, PLUS THE TOOLS AROUND IT A full SSH terminal, not a chat box, with the modern dev workflow built in: browse and edit remote files, review git diffs, forward localhost to preview your dev server, and run terminal CLIs like Claude Code in a real session, exactly as you would on your laptop. Pair a server once with the onepilot CLI (one npm install and a QR scan) and your sessions become persistent: your shell keeps running on your own server through app closes and connection drops, and greets you with full scrollback when you return. SEE YOUR AGENTS THINK Onepilot detects the coding agent sessions running on your servers (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode) and streams them live: follow every step as it happens, scroll the full transcript, then jump into the terminal to take over. PILLAR TWO: DEPLOY AND MANAGE AN AGENT FLEET Spin up a persistent AI agent in minutes with a guided wizard, no config files: pick a framework like OpenClaw or Hermes, choose a model, add your keys, connect a channel, and Onepilot keeps it running on your server. Watch every agent across every machine from a single view; swap the model, rotate a key, or adjust behavior anytime. KNOW WHEN SOMETHING BREAKS Fleet monitoring watches CPU, memory, disk, load, and your Docker containers on every paired host, learns each machine's normal, and sends a push notification when something drifts. Alerts are calm by design: one notification when a problem starts, spaced reminders while it lasts, and a recovery note when it heals. Drill into any container for live performance charts. RUNS WHILE YOU SLEEP Put any agent or task on a schedule with cron and let your fleet work overnight. This is automation no plain SSH client offers: your agents run even when your phone is asleep. SET UP ONCE, REUSE EVERYWHERE Store your keys and chat tokens one time, then reuse them across every agent. Give your agents new skills from a community marketplace. WHY ONEPILOT A plain SSH client connects you to a shell. Onepilot gives you that shell plus a full dev ecosystem around it, and an agent operations layer on top: deploy, monitor, alert, schedule, and manage a fleet of AI agents on your own servers. One app for every machine and every agent, not a remote control for one. Ships worldwide.

About

Shell Drop

This app provides a native terminal experience for iOS and iPadOS, designed for running AI agents via SSH. It allows seamless integration with AI models by enabling image and file uploads directly into sessions, with customizable upload limits. Features include tmux awareness, secure SSH key authentication, and on-device voice input for commands.

Highlights
  • AI agent integration
  • Image and file uploads
  • Tmux session management
  • SSH key authentication
  • On-device voice input
  • Customizable keyboard toolbar
Features
Read full description

ShellDrop is a fast, native terminal for iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro, built for running AI agents: Claude Code, Codex, Grok, Hermes, OpenClaw, opencode, anything that lives in tmux on a Mac mini, VPS or any box you can SSH into. WORK WITH YOUR AGENTS - Paste images straight into a session. Copy a screenshot from any app, paste it in the terminal, and your agent reads it. - Attach files too. Tap the paperclip in the toolbar to pick a file from Files, or a photo or video from your library, and it uploads to the server for your agent to read. - You choose the upload size limit. Settings goes from 100 MB to 1 GB, and if a file is over, ShellDrop offers to raise it on the spot. - Tmux aware. Vertical swipe scrolls history, horizontal swipe switches sessions. - Tab names sync with the real tmux session names automatically. - Sessions stay alive in the background while you switch apps. - Agent to clipboard. Ask your agent to write an email, say "copy that to my clipboard", and it lands on your phone ready to paste into your mail app. - Droplet Visualizer: the feature nobody asked for. See all your sessions from the perspective of an Egyptian god. BUILT LIKE A REAL TERMINAL - SSH key authentication. Generate Ed25519 keys or hardware-backed Secure Enclave keys in-app, where the private key never leaves the chip. - Paste-import your existing OpenSSH keys. - The keyboard toolbar is yours. Tap and hold to rearrange the keys you use most, and create your own custom Tmux key bindings. - Sticky ctrl for all of your perverted tmux activities. - Text selection with a dedicated selection mode, long-press word select, and one-tap links. - Nerd Fonts. FiraCode and JetBrains Mono render the glyphs nvim and LazyVim need. - Full screen mode for extra real estate. - Full iPad support including 13" iPad Pro, plus hardware keyboards. - iCloud sync keeps saved connections on every device, and you can switch it off in Settings any time. Private keys stay on your device by design. NO SUBSCRIPTION Every feature included. VOICE DROP Tap the mic on the keyboard toolbar and talk. Your words drop into the prompt at the cursor. Transcription runs on-device with Apple speech, or through your own Groq API key for whisper-large-v3-turbo. Nothing sends until you hit return. Prefer a dictation keyboard like Wispr Flow? Works great here too. PRIVACY Credentials live in the iOS keychain on your device. There is no account, and no telemetry or analytics are collected. Terminal traffic goes to your servers over SSH and nowhere else. Built by an indie developer who runs AI agents every day.

Screenshots

Onepilot4 screens
Shell Drop4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shell Drop at none against Onepilot's 3. Shell Drop also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and review sentiment (100% vs 87%). Onepilot's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 9 days) and ratings volume (17 vs 3). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Onepilot sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month. Shell Drop asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Shell Drop holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Onepilot has 17 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 87% of Onepilot's written reviews are positive against 100% of Shell Drop's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Onepilot ships an update every 3 days, Shell Drop every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Onepilot versus Shell Drop: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOnepilotShell Drop
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (17 ratings)5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews87.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings17 — better3
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 9 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.617.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size40 MB16 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSOFIANE EL MOKADDAMDaniel Bilsborough

Customer experience

Onepilot

All ratings17 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews23 reviews
Positive87.0%
Neutral4.3%
Negative8.7%

Shell Drop

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Onepilot

Subscriptions3
  • Onepilot monthly$7.991 Month
  • Onepilot yearly launch3 Days trial$44.991 Year
  • Onepilot Pro - Yearly3 Days trial$59.991 Year
None

Shell Drop

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Onepilot free?
Onepilot is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Shell Drop free?
Shell Drop is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Onepilot or Shell Drop?
Shell Drop is rated higher. Onepilot averages 4.7 out of 5 from 17 ratings, while Shell Drop averages 5.0 from 3 ratings.
Do Onepilot or Shell Drop have ads?
Neither Onepilot nor Shell Drop shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Onepilot or Shell Drop?
Onepilot ships an update every 3 days, and Shell Drop every 9 days. Most recently, Onepilot was updated on October 15, 2026 and Shell Drop on October 14, 2026.

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