Comparison

Orca IDE vs vmux Agent Console

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

vmux Agent Console

Features
Read full description

vmux is a native companion app for the self-hosted vmux server, built for developers running multiple CLI coding agents in tmux. Connect to your vmux server over LAN, Tailscale, or an SSH tunnel, then monitor which panes are idle, working, blocked for input, or in error. The app keeps the attention queue first, so the panes that need you are easy to find. Features: - Queue, Active, All, and tree views for tmux panes - Pane detail view with recent terminal output - Tappable menu choices for supported coding-agent prompts - Custom shortcut keys and saved snippets - Broadcast messages to multiple panes - Server settings and connected-session management - Optional APNs alerts from your own vmux server when a pane needs input - iPhone and iPad layouts vmux is self-hosted. There is no vmux cloud account, no third-party analytics, no advertising SDK, and no developer-operated relay. Your app talks to the server address you configure, and tokens are stored in the system Keychain.

Screenshots

Orca IDE4 screens
vmux Agent Console3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Orca IDE at every 3 days against vmux Agent Console's every 10 days. Orca IDE also leads on chart position (#19 vs unranked) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Orca IDE ships an update every 3 days, vmux Agent Console every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and September 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Orca IDE versus vmux Agent Console: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOrca IDEvmux Agent Console
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (25 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews93.1% of reviews—
Number of ratings25 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 10 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank#19 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size40 MB11 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLovecast LLCYui Pan YAU

In-app purchases

None

Orca IDE

No in-app purchases

None

vmux Agent Console

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Orca IDE free?
Orca IDE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is vmux Agent Console free?
vmux Agent Console is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Orca IDE or vmux Agent Console have ads?
Neither Orca IDE nor vmux Agent Console shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Orca IDE or vmux Agent Console?
Orca IDE ships an update every 3 days, and vmux Agent Console every 10 days. Most recently, Orca IDE was updated on September 28, 2026 and vmux Agent Console on September 8, 2026.

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