Orca IDE vs SimDeck Studio
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
SimDeck Studio
Access and control your mobile development simulators remotely from your phone or tablet. Stream live simulator screens and manage device sessions without being tied to your desktop.
- Live simulator screen streaming
- Remote simulator control
- Device session management
- Stream setting adjustments
- Secure pairing options
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SimDeck puts your mobile development simulators in your hand. It is built for mobile developers and QA workflows when you want live simulator access without staying glued to your desktop. Use SimDeck to: - View live simulator and emulator screens with WebRTC streaming - Browse available devices and switch between sessions quickly - Start and stop simulators from your phone or iPad - Tune stream resolution, frame rate, and encoder settings - Pair securely with QR codes, LAN addresses, Tailscale, or SimDeck Studio links SimDeck requires the SimDeck CLI/server running on your Mac or development machine. Install SimDeck, run simdeck pair, scan the QR code, and your development devices are ready to control from iOS.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: SimDeck Studio at 5.0 against Orca IDE's 4.7. SimDeck Studio also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 4 days). Orca IDE's advantage is ratings volume (58 vs 2) and chart position (#18 vs unranked). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
SimDeck Studio holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Orca IDE has 58 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Orca IDE ships an update every 4 days, SimDeck Studio daily. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Orca IDE | SimDeck Studio |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (58 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 86.2% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 58 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #18 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 46 MB | 19 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lovecast LLC | nStudio LLC |
Customer experience
Orca IDE
SimDeck Studio
In-app purchases
Orca IDE
No in-app purchases
SimDeck Studio
No in-app purchases









