Comparison

Orca IDE vs Grenade

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

Grenade

Features
Read full description

Grenade is a remote for the AI coding agents running on your Mac or Linux computer. Claude Code, Codex or a plain shell run in terminals on that computer; your iPhone shows every one of them with a live status, and lets you read, answer and type from wherever you are. • See at a glance which agent needs an answer, which has finished and which is still working. • Approve a command, answer a question or accept a plan with one tap. The card shows the full command first. • Read the terminal live, or the plain activity view of what the agent said. • Type, paste an image, or hold the mic and talk. • Talk: ask out loud what needs you and hear the answer. Grenade knows your sessions and passes on what you say. It runs on OpenAI or Google Gemini with your own API key, kept on your computer. • Start new sessions in any folder, and group them like tabs. Private by design. On your Wi-Fi the phone talks straight to your computer; anywhere else it goes through a relay that forwards only end-to-end encrypted bytes. No account, no tracking, nothing collected. Needs the free Grenade software on your Mac or Linux computer: brew install holdgrenade/tap/grenade, then grenade setup (Linux: holdgrenade.com/install). No computer handy? Tap "Try a demo" on the first screen.

Screenshots

Orca IDE4 screens
Grenade4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is chart position: Orca IDE at #17 against Grenade's unranked. Orca IDE also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, 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

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

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Orca IDE versus Grenade: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOrca IDEGrenade
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (53 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews87.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings53 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysEvery 4 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank#17 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB11 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLovecast LLCCroissant, Inc.

In-app purchases

None

Orca IDE

No in-app purchases

None

Grenade

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Orca IDE free?
Orca IDE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Grenade free?
Grenade is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Orca IDE or Grenade have ads?
Neither Orca IDE nor Grenade shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Orca IDE or Grenade?
Orca IDE ships an update every 4 days, and Grenade every 4 days. Most recently, Orca IDE was updated on October 29, 2026 and Grenade on October 22, 2026.

Other comparisons