ScarfGo vs Orca IDE
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ScarfGo
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ScarfGo is the iPhone companion to Scarf, the open-source macOS GUI for the Hermes AI agent. It connects from your phone to a Hermes server you operate — your Mac, a home Linux box, a cloud VM, anything reachable over SSH — and lets you run sessions, browse memory, manage cron jobs, and resume conversations on the go. A fully native iOS app, not a web view or a remote desktop. ScarfGo speaks SSH directly using a pure-Swift implementation, reads Hermes state via SFTP and SQLite snapshots, and streams real-time agent output over the Agent Client Protocol on a long-lived SSH exec channel. Every byte stays between your device and the Hermes host you configured. What you can do: • Multi-server. Configure as many Hermes hosts as you like and switch between them with a tap. Soft Disconnect keeps your credentials cached; Forget wipes a server end-to-end. • Dashboard. Stats and the 25 most recent sessions, with project badges so you can tell at a glance which work is which. • Project-scoped chat. Pick a project from your registry and ScarfGo writes the same Scarf-managed AGENTS.md context block the Mac app does, so the agent boots with the right project context. The resulting session is attributed correctly across both clients. • Session resume. Tap any row on the Dashboard to open that session's transcript in Chat. CLI-started sessions hydrate from the Hermes state database; ACP sessions show an empty-state because Hermes does not persist ACP transcripts to the database. • Memory editor. Read and edit MEMORY.md and USER.md with a Saved indicator that survives keyboard dismissal and a one-tap Revert. • Cron list. Human-readable schedules ("Every 6 hours", "Weekdays at 09:00") instead of raw cron expressions, plus a relative next-run estimate. Read-only in this release; editing comes in a future update. • Skills browser. Read-only category tree with the SKILL.md frontmatter chips (allowed tools, related skills, dependencies) the Mac app shows. • Settings viewer. Read-only inspection of your config.yaml. Edit values from the Mac app or a remote shell. Privacy. ScarfGo does not collect, transmit, or store your data on any server controlled by the developer. There are no analytics, no telemetry, no ad identifiers. SSH keys are generated on-device and stored in the iOS Keychain with the ThisDeviceOnly attribute, so they are unreachable while the device is locked and never sync to iCloud. The complete privacy policy lives at awizemann.github.io/scarf/privacy. Open-source under the MIT license. Source, issue tracker, and contributor docs at github.com/awizemann/scarf. Bug reports tagged component:scarfgo go straight to the developer. Requirements. iOS 18.0 or later. An SSH-reachable Hermes server (Hermes v0.10.0 or later recommended; full v0.11.0 features supported). Your phone needs to be able to reach that server over the network, for example on the same Wi-Fi or at a public address that accepts SSH connections. ScarfGo itself does not provide any network or VPN service.
Orca IDE
This app mirrors your desktop terminal sessions, including AI agent interactions, directly to your iPhone. It provides full keyboard input and multi-terminal support for seamless remote coding management. All processing remains on your desktop, ensuring your data stays secure.
- Live desktop terminal mirror
- AI agent session management
- Full keyboard input
- Multi-worktree, multi-terminal support
- Phone-fit zoom and smart keyboard
- Background command execution
- End-to-end encrypted pairing
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Orca Mobile is the companion app for Orca, the open-source agentic coding workspace for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Pair your iPhone to your desktop in seconds and pick up a terminal session from the couch, the kitchen, or across the office. WHAT IT DOES • Live mirror of your desktop terminal, including running AI agent sessions (Claude Code, Codex, custom CLIs). • Full keyboard input — type, tab-complete, Ctrl-C, scroll back, all from the phone. • Multi-worktree, multi-terminal: jump between projects with a tap. • Phone-fit zoom and a smart on-screen keyboard with quick Ctrl/Alt accessory keys and shortcuts. • Background long-running commands and get a notification when a TUI goes idle (e.g. when Claude finishes thinking). HOW IT WORKS Orca Mobile is a thin client. Nothing runs on your phone except the viewer. Your code, your shells, your AI agents — all of that stays on your desktop. The phone shows you what's happening and forwards your keystrokes back over an encrypted local-network connection. Pairing is end-to-end encrypted. Your desktop generates a one-time keypair and shows a QR code; you scan it from the app. After that, all traffic between phone and desktop is sealed with that pair's keys. PRIVACY • No analytics SDK, no crash reporter, no third-party SDKs of any kind in the iOS app. • Pairing tokens and your preference list live in the app's own sandbox. The app's traffic to your desktop is end-to-end encrypted on your local network only. • The Orca desktop app collects anonymized usage metrics per the policy at https://www.onorca.dev/privacy. The mobile app itself does not. • Open source: every line is auditable at https://github.com/stablyai/orca. REQUIREMENTS • An iPhone (iOS 16+) on the same Wi-Fi as your desktop. • The Orca desktop app, free, from https://www.onorca.dev/ or https://github.com/stablyai/orca/releases.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is chart position: Orca IDE at #14 against ScarfGo's unranked. Orca IDE also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.6). 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | ScarfGo | Orca IDE |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 4.6 (41 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 83.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 41 — better |
| Update frequency | — | Every 3 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Best chart rank | — | #14 — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 42 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Alan Wizemann | Lovecast LLC |
In-app purchases
ScarfGo
No in-app purchases
Orca IDE
No in-app purchases








