Orca IDE vs Hermes Conduit

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.

Hermes Conduit is an independent client for your own Hermes agent, on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. Your sessions, profiles, bots and tools are the same ones you use on desktop, in a touch-first app built for chatting, talking, and keeping an eye on your agent while you're away from your desk. TALK TO HERMES • Real-time voice calls with Gemini Live, Qwen Live, GPT-Live and Grok Live, or Local Live on your own speech server, with echo cancellation and interruption • Start, check and cancel Hermes jobs by voice, with results folded back into the call • Calls stay with the chat you started them from, keep going with the screen locked, shrink to a bar while you read, and are saved as chats • Hermes can call you when a job is done or it needs your answer; pick up like a normal call, even on your Watch • Talk from Apple Watch on its own, from CarPlay, from Siri, or with a wake phrase • Classic voice and dictation with spoken Stop and End, plus Read Aloud for any reply CHAT WITHOUT LOSING CONTEXT • Pick up desktop sessions and project chats where you left them, with replies streaming in live • Markdown, highlighted code, math, Mermaid diagrams and task lists • Map, place, travel, media, contact and info cards that Hermes draws right in the chat • Follow thinking, tool calls and each turn's steps, or keep them folded away • Answer Hermes' questions with a tap or a short form • Attach photos, camera shots and any file, or drag them in; long pastes become attachments • Swipe through pictures full screen; quote, react to, edit and resend messages • Browse every file and artifact Hermes made, and your project folders • On iPad and Mac, resize the chat list and chat columns; text grows with the window TASKS, BOTS AND PULSE • Tasks board: follow Hermes' Kanban tasks and add new ones • Open your Hermes bots and their Bot Chats; set each bot's model, skills and tools • Group chats with your bots and @mentions • Review, run and edit scheduled jobs • Pulse (beta): turn it on and Hermes brings things up on its own, from a morning brief to follow-ups on your plans YOUR PHONE, IF YOU ALLOW IT Every one is off until you turn it on, and goes only to your own Hermes host: • Location and place rules, travel times and directions • Calendar and reminders, with each change asked first • Apple Health data • Focus, alarms and timers, and contacts you pick • Ask Hermes about what's on your screen, or send anything to it from Shortcuts or the share sheet STAY IN CONTROL • Approve tools and answer questions straight from a notification, end-to-end encrypted between your host and your phone • Live Activities for a running reply on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island • Home Screen widgets to start a chat or talk in one tap • Switch providers, models and reasoning effort mid-conversation; watch context use; steer, queue or stop a turn • Branch, pin, archive and delete sessions; switch profiles and Hermes servers • Turn skills, tools, connectors and plugins on or off • Face ID or Touch ID lock, credentials kept in the Keychain EASY TO SET UP Sign in with your dashboard address, a QR code or a setup link from your agent. Install the free Hermes Conduit Notifier plugin on your host for notifications, voice calls, cards and phone features. BUILT FOR SELF-HOSTED HERMES Conduit connects to the Hermes dashboard you run, and in live voice calls to the voice provider you choose. It is not a hosted AI service, and a working Hermes installation is required. Free, with no ads, no analytics and no tracking. If Conduit crashes or freezes, it asks once whether to send that report (call stacks, app and iOS version, device model) to its developer, and sends nothing unless you tap Send. Available in English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish and Turkish. Hermes Conduit is an independent client and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nous Research.