Orca IDE vs Remote for OpenCode Agents
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.
Remote for OpenCode Agents
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Run OpenCode on your Mac, then connect with this client from anywhere to get the full OpenCode harness. Remote for OpenCode connects your iPhone to the OpenCode coding agent running on your own Mac, so you can start work, watch it happen, and approve what it wants to do, from the sofa, the bus, or anywhere else. ZERO NETWORK SETUP No VPN, no port forwarding, no IP addresses to type. Your devices find each other through your own iCloud account and talk directly, end-to-end encrypted. There is no server in the middle because there is no server at all. YOUR CODE STAYS YOURS The agent runs on your Mac, against your repositories, using your model credentials, which never leave it. Nothing is collected, no analytics, no third-party SDKs. APPROVE FROM ANYWHERE When the agent wants to run a command, you see the exact command and decide. Risky actions look different from routine ones, so a destructive command never gets waved through out of habit. Face ID confirms it's you. PLAN MODE Switch the agent to Plan mode and it cannot edit anything at all, explore a codebase and get a plan back with a hard guarantee that nothing changed. REVIEW BEFORE YOU SIGN OFF See every accumulated change with per-file diffs, either against your last commit or against your default branch, the way a reviewer would. ALSO - Watch the agent think, live - Dictate prompts, transcribed on-device - Send screenshots and files as context - Run your own slash commands - Pick any model your OpenCode is configured with OPEN SOURCE The iPhone app, the Mac companion, and the protocol between them are public at github.com/tjameswilliams/remote-for-opencode under the PolyForm Noncommercial license. Every privacy claim on this page is something you can verify by reading the code instead of taking it on trust. REQUIRES a Mac running the free Remote for OpenCode companion and OpenCode. Get the companion at https://remoteforopencode.com. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the OpenCode project.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Orca IDE at every 3 days against Remote for OpenCode Agents's every 8 days. Orca IDE also leads on chart position (#19 vs unranked) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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.
Orca IDE ships an update every 3 days, Remote for OpenCode Agents every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Orca IDE | Remote for OpenCode Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (25 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 93.1% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 25 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Best chart rank | #19 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 40 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lovecast LLC | Tim Williams |
In-app purchases
Orca IDE
No in-app purchases
Remote for OpenCode Agents
No in-app purchases





