Orca IDE vs Conductor.build
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Orca IDE
Control your coding environment remotely from your phone. Mirror your desktop terminal, manage AI agent sessions, and interact with your code using a smart on-screen keyboard. All your data remains on your desktop, with secure, end-to-end encrypted local network connections.
- Live desktop terminal mirror
- AI agent session management
- Full keyboard input
- Multi-worktree 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.
Conductor.build
Manage a team of cloud-based coding agents directly from your Mac or phone. This tool allows for remote control and operation of your development team.
- Run coding agents in the cloud
- Remote team control
- Access from Mac or phone
- Team management
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Conductor lets you run a team of coding agents in the cloud and control them from your mac or phone.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is chart position: Orca IDE at #20 against Conductor.build's #172. Orca IDE also leads on ratings volume (71 vs 13) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Orca IDE against 4.7 for Conductor.build. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Orca IDE has 71 ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 86% of Orca IDE's written reviews are positive against 82% of Conductor.build's.
Orca IDE ships an update every 4 days, Conductor.build every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Orca IDE | Conductor.build |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (71 ratings) | 4.7 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 86.1% of reviews — better | 81.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 71 — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #20 — better | #172 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 47 MB | 77 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | +4 |
| Developer | Lovecast LLC | Melty, Inc. |
Customer experience
Orca IDE
Conductor.build
In-app purchases
Orca IDE
No in-app purchases
Conductor.build
No in-app purchases
