Comparison

ClawTab vs Cortex Relay

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

Head to head
About

ClawTab

Features
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ClawTab puts your Mac's AI agents in your pocket. Schedule, monitor, and control Claude Code. Codex and OpenCode sessions and automated jobs from anywhere - right from your phone. Run AI coding agents on your Mac and never miss a question. When an Agent needs your input, ClawTab detects it automatically and sends you a push notification with tappable answer cards. No more babysitting terminal windows. KEY FEATURES - Remote job control: Run, pause, resume, and stop jobs on your Mac from your phone - Agent question detection: When Agent asks a question, answer it with a single tap - Live log streaming: Watch terminal output in real time - Cron scheduling: Schedule recurring jobs with standard cron expressions - Push notifications: Get notified when jobs complete or need attention - Workspace sharing: Grant colleagues access to monitor and control your agents - Run history: Review past job runs, exit codes, and logs - Secure by design: Secrets stay in your Mac's Keychain, never transmitted HOW IT WORKS Agent instances need to run in tmux to detect and control them. 1. Install the ClawTab desktop app on your Mac (free, open source) 2. Pair your phone by signing in with the same account on both Mac and iOS 3. Create jobs - shell scripts, Claude Code prompts, or folder-based agents 4. Control everything from your phone: run jobs, stream logs, answer agent questions Whether you're running a single Agent session or orchestrating dozens of AI agents across projects, ClawTab keeps you in control without being chained to your desk. Self-hosting available for teams and enterprises who want to run their own relay server.

About

Cortex Relay

Access powerful AI agents like Claude Code from your iPhone via a chat interface or a full SSH terminal. Features include on-device voice input, persistent sessions, and secure credential management. Customize your terminal experience with various themes and font sizes.

Highlights
  • AI agent chat interface
  • Full SSH terminal access
  • On-device voice input
  • Persistent tmux sessions
  • Secure SSH key management
  • Customizable terminal themes
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Run Claude Code (or Codex and any other AI agent) from your iPhone. Cortex Relay gives you two ways to work with Claude Code on a remote machine — a friendly chat UI and a full-blown SSH terminal. Pick the right tool for the moment. THE CHAT Speak or type a prompt. Claude Code runs on your server, and the response streams back as a clean conversation with tool activity, cost breakdowns, and one-tap shortcuts for common tasks like committing, reviewing branches, or checking status. Upload photos from your camera roll and Claude can see them too. THE TERMINAL A real SSH terminal session. Cortex Relay renders the full CLI experience — interactive permission prompts, slash commands, MCP integrations, vim, git, whatever you need. Seven color themes from Nord to Dracula, pinch to resize, and a shortcut bar for /compact, /clear, /model, /status, and /cost. VOICE INPUT On-device speech recognition powered by OpenAI's Whisper. Pick a model size (tiny, base, small) and language (English or multilingual). Runs entirely on your phone — no server round-trip, works offline. Apple's built-in speech engine is available by default too. SESSIONS THAT SURVIVE Every terminal session runs inside tmux. Background the app, lose WiFi, switch to a call — your session keeps running on the server. Come back and everything is exactly where you left off. No reconnect dance. NOTIFICATIONS Get a push when Claude finishes a long task or needs your approval. The chat sends these automatically. For terminal sessions, drop a one-line webhook into your project's CLAUDE.md and Claude does the rest. SECURE BY DEFAULT Generate ed25519 SSH keys directly in the app or import your existing ones. Keys live in the iOS Keychain, optionally locked behind Face ID or Touch ID. Password auth is supported too, with the same biometric protection. Your credentials never leave the device. ORGANIZED Create named servers with saved directories. Spin up Chat or Terminal connections to any project on any machine. Each connection remembers its own dictation preferences. One server, many projects, zero re-entering credentials. YOUR TERMINAL, YOUR WAY Navy, Homebrew, Nord, Dracula, Solarized Dark, One Dark, Pure Black — pick a theme, see it applied instantly. Pinch to zoom the font size. It sticks between sessions. WHAT STAYS ON YOUR PHONE - SSH keys and passwords in iOS Keychain with biometric lock - Whisper speech recognition runs on-device only - No credentials sent to our servers - Push relay handles notification delivery — nothing else

Screenshots

ClawTab3 screens
Cortex Relay4 screens

Verdict

The call

ClawTab and Cortex Relay are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and September 18, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
ClawTab versus Cortex Relay: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterClawTabCortex Relay
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.4 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size44 MB14 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTonis TiganikMaksim Mikheev

In-app purchases

None

ClawTab

No in-app purchases

None

Cortex Relay

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ClawTab free?
ClawTab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cortex Relay free?
Cortex Relay is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ClawTab or Cortex Relay have ads?
Neither ClawTab nor Cortex Relay shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ClawTab or Cortex Relay?
ClawTab ships an update every 2 months, and Cortex Relay every 2 months. Most recently, ClawTab was updated on September 8, 2026 and Cortex Relay on September 18, 2026.

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