Comparison

Orca IDE vs AO

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

AO

Features
Read full description

AO Mobile is the companion app for Agent Orchestrator, the desktop workspace for agent-driven development. Your agents keep working while you step away from your desk. AO Mobile keeps you in the loop — see what every worker is doing, answer the ones that are blocked, and keep work moving from your phone. REQUIRES THE AO DESKTOP APP AO Mobile is a thin client. It connects directly to Agent Orchestrator running on your own computer, over your local network or your Tailscale network. There is no cloud service and no account to create. Your code, conversations, and repositories never leave your machine. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Live Kanban — every worker session on one board, grouped by what needs your attention: working, needs you, in review, ready to merge. • Get notified when an agent stops — a push notification arrives the moment a session needs your input, and tapping it opens that exact conversation. • Chat with any agent — full conversation history, streaming responses, approvals, model and provider switching, file attachments, and voice input for when typing is impractical. • Follow pull requests — open and draft PRs with their checks, CI status, and review state. • Talk to the orchestrator — your project-level planning agent, for thinking through direction and delegating new work. • Drop into the terminal — attach to a session's live terminal when you need the raw view. • Preview running work — open a worker's browser preview to see what it built. BUILT FOR TRUST The desktop's connection to your phone is opt-in and off by default. When you enable it, AO opens a separate local listener protected by a rotating password, and pairing happens by scanning a QR code shown on your desktop. Turning it off closes the connection immediately. GETTING STARTED 1. Install Agent Orchestrator on your Mac, Windows, or Linux machine. 2. Turn on Connect Mobile in the desktop app. 3. Scan the pairing QR code with this app. Agent Orchestrator is open source. Learn more at aoagents.dev.

Screenshots

Orca IDE4 screens
AO4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Orca IDE at every 3 days against AO's every 2 weeks. Orca IDE also leads on chart position (#14 vs unranked). 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, AO every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 9 level
Orca IDE versus AO: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOrca IDEAO
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (41 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings41 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank#14 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size42 MB49 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLovecast LLCPrateek Karnal

In-app purchases

None

Orca IDE

No in-app purchases

None

AO

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Orca IDE free?
Orca IDE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is AO free?
AO is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Orca IDE or AO have ads?
Neither Orca IDE nor AO shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Orca IDE or AO?
Orca IDE ships an update every 3 days, and AO every 2 weeks. Most recently, Orca IDE was updated on October 19, 2026 and AO on October 13, 2026.

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