Comparison

Orca IDE vs Cursor

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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.

About

Cursor

Build, review, and ship software from anywhere using AI agents. Implement changes, fix bugs, and manage projects remotely. Verify work with demos and provide visual feedback to agents.

Highlights
  • Launch coding agents from anywhere
  • Track and manage engineering work
  • Review screenshots and videos of changes
  • Annotate images for visual feedback
  • Inspect diffs and merge pull requests
  • Communicate with agents via voice
  • Understand codebases faster
Features
Read full description

Introducing Cursor for iOS: the best way to build, review, and ship software from anywhere. Kick off and manage agents to implement changes, fix bugs, and keep projects moving forward while you're away from your desk. BUILD FROM ANYWHERE With Cursor in your pocket, you can start new work the moment inspiration strikes. Launch agents directly from your phone to implement features, investigate issues, or answer questions about your codebase. Track progress across long-running agents and review completed work no matter where you are. Cursor helps you think through complex problems with a deep understanding of your codebase. VERIFY WORK WITH DEMOS Agents can test changes in their own sandbox and iterate until they've validated their output. Cursor can produce artifacts like videos, screenshots, and logs, so you can quickly verify its work before moving to the next step. By giving agents their own virtual machines with full development environments, they are able to work more autonomously to create merge-ready PRs. POINT AND DRAW TO FIX Take a screenshot, circle an issue, and drop comments to give agents visual feedback directly on images. Cursor understands annotations and uses them as context to make precise updates. Visual inputs help shrink the distance between what you see and what the agent understands. This allows you to iterate faster when refining UI, fixing visual bugs, or communicating design changes. SHIP CODE FROM YOUR PHONE Review pull requests and inspect changes through a focused diff experience designed for mobile. From quick fixes to major features, Cursor makes it easy to move between files and commits. Understand what changed and merge high-quality code with confidence. TALK TO CURSOR Use voice mode to communicate what you want without typing. Brainstorm ideas, explain bugs, plan features, tackle a difficult technical challenge, or request changes out loud. Cursor turns conversations into actionable engineering work, allowing you to stay in flow and capture ideas as they come to you. BUILT FOR MODERN SOFTWARE TEAMS Cursor is designed to help individuals and teams build ambitious software. Always use the best model for the task at hand with access to any frontier model from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and more. Cursor's own agentic model, Composer, delivers frontier-level intelligence while optimizing for speed and token-efficiency. With Cursor for iOS, you can: • Launch coding agents from anywhere • Track and manage active engineering work • Review screenshots and videos of changes • Annotate images to provide visual feedback • Inspect diffs and merge pull requests • Talk to agents with voice conversations • Understand unfamiliar codebases faster Whether you’re maintaining production systems or building your next side project, Cursor helps you turn your ideas into working software from anywhere. ——— Terms of Service: https://cursor.com/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://cursor.com/privacy © 2026 Anysphere, Inc.

Screenshots

Orca IDE4 screens
Cursor4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Orca IDE at none against Cursor's 3. Orca IDE also leads on review sentiment (88% vs 60%) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 26.0). Cursor's advantage is ratings volume (868 vs 32) and chart position (#2 vs #20). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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. Cursor sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $25.99 per month. Orca IDE asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Orca IDE against 4.7 for Cursor. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cursor has 868 ratings behind it against 32, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 88% of Orca IDE's written reviews are positive against 60% of Cursor's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Orca IDE ships an update every 3 days, Cursor every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Orca IDE versus Cursor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOrca IDECursor
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (32 ratings)4.7 (868 ratings) — better
Positive reviews87.9% of reviews — better59.6% of reviews
Number of ratings32868 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 6 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
Best chart rank#20#2 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size41 MB275 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperLovecast LLCAnysphere

Customer experience

Orca IDE

All ratings32 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral9.4%
Negative3.1%
Written reviews33 reviews
Positive87.9%
Neutral9.1%
Negative3.0%

Cursor

All ratings868 ratings
Positive92.7%
Neutral1.7%
Negative5.5%
Written reviews223 reviews
Positive59.6%
Neutral4.5%
Negative35.9%

In-app purchases

None

Orca IDE

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Cursor

Subscriptions3
  • Pro$25.991 Month
  • Pro+$77.991 Month
  • Ultra$259.991 Month

Questions

Is Orca IDE free?
Orca IDE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cursor free?
Cursor is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Orca IDE or Cursor?
Cursor is rated higher. Orca IDE averages 4.6 out of 5 from 32 ratings, while Cursor averages 4.7 from 868 ratings.
Do Orca IDE or Cursor have ads?
Neither Orca IDE nor Cursor shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Orca IDE or Cursor?
Orca IDE ships an update every 3 days, and Cursor every 6 days. Most recently, Orca IDE was updated on October 11, 2026 and Cursor on October 12, 2026.
Which is more popular, Orca IDE or Cursor?
Orca IDE currently peaks at #20 in the App Store charts, and Cursor at #2. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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