Comparison

Lochan vs PocketADM

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Lochan

Features
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Your coding agents keep working when you step away. Lochan is how you keep up with them, calmly. When Claude Code, Codex or any other agent on your computer stops to ask a question, open its real terminal on your phone, read what it did, and answer. Then get back to your walk. A CALM VIEW OF A BUSY HERD Every agent on the machine at a glance, with a line on where each one left off. The ones waiting on you always come first. - Tiles: the whole herd as a grid that moves as your agents do - Board: Blocked, Working, Done and Idle as columns you swipe through - Projects: agents grouped by the project they are working in ASK THE SHEPHERD One question, the whole herd. The Shepherd is an agent on your computer that reads every other pane. Ask it what needs you, what changed or whether anything is stuck, and it answers from what is on the screens, with a link to each pane it mentions. It runs Claude Code by default, or Codex, Pi, OpenCode or Grok. ANY AGENT CAN JOIN THE HERD Lochan does not plug into your agent. It opens the terminal the agent is already running in, so it works with Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Grok, OpenCode, Aider and anything else with a prompt. A new agent works the day it ships. A REAL TERMINAL, IN YOUR POCKET Tap any agent for the actual session: full output, scrollback and a keyboard. MAKE THE KEYS YOUR OWN Two rows of keys sit above the terminal. Drag any key to either row, switch off the ones you never use, and add your own: - Text keys for the commands you repeat, like /compact, /usage or /model sonnet - Chord keys for Ctrl, Option and Shift combos, like your tmux prefix or Ctrl-R SHARE A SCREENSHOT WITH YOUR AGENT Pick a photo, take one of the screen in front of you, or send a file. It lands on your computer and its path goes into the prompt, ready for you to finish and send. SAY IT. CHECK IT. SEND IT. Dictate a long instruction, read the transcript, and send it only when it reads right. Or write it in a real text box, with a draft that waits if you get pulled away. RUN THE HERD FROM YOUR PHONE Start a new agent in any project, rename it, and close it when it is done. BUILT FOR A PHONE Lochan tells each agent it is being driven from a phone, so it leads with the answer, keeps replies short and batches its questions. PAIRED IN ONE SCAN Run one line on your Mac or Linux machine, then scan the code it shows. Your phone makes its own key, and it stays in the phone's Keychain. Nothing to type, no private key to copy. Save every machine you own and switch between them from the title bar. No account, and no Lochan server in between: your phone talks to your computers over SSH. Away from home you need a route to them, and Tailscale is the two-minute version. ALSO IN LOCHAN: A PRIVATE AI CHAT Chat with Apple's on-device model, open models downloaded to your phone, or cloud models with your own API key. Conversations branch instead of overwriting, and you can share one with a link we cannot read. Lochan works with Herdr, the terminal workspace for AI coding agents, on the computers you own.

About

PocketADM

Manage your self-hosted Linux servers directly from your phone. Monitor live dashboards, access a full terminal, deploy apps with a one-tap store, and receive smart updates and health checks. An optional AI agent can even run commands and fix issues.

Highlights
  • Live server dashboard
  • Full terminal with copy/paste
  • AI agent for command execution
  • One-tap app deployment
  • Smart updates and health checks
  • Open source
Features
Read full description

PocketADM is a mobile-first command center for the servers you host yourself. Connect to your own Linux box and run the whole thing from your phone. โ€ข Live dashboard: CPU, memory, disk, uptime and network at a glance, with every container grouped and one tap from its logs. โ€ข A real terminal: a full terminal with a mobile key bar and copy & paste. Open a shell as your own host user, the app, or exec into any container. โ€ข Assistant: an optional AI agent that runs commands, reads and edits files and fixes things directly on your server. It streams live, asks before anything destructive, and you bring your own API key (or run a local model). โ€ข One-tap app store: deploy popular self-hosted apps as clean Docker/compose projects with friendly config forms. โ€ข Smart updates & health: spot outdated images, roll back safely, and get plain language security and health checks. PocketADM is open source (MIT). There is no account with us and no tracking. The app talks only to the servers you add, over a direct connection. You run the server software yourself with a single install command from pocketadm.com. Just looking? Add the demo server demo.pocketadm.com with username and password 'demo' to explore a read-only sandbox.

Screenshots

Lochan4 screens
PocketADM4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: PocketADM at 17.0 against Lochan's 26.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lochan ships an update fortnightly, PocketADM every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 10, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 7 level
Lochan versus PocketADM: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLochanPocketADM
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviewsโ€”100.0% of reviews
Update frequencyFortnightly โ€” betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetizationโ€”Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.017.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size63 MB11 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperPurplecones, LLCMaximilian Elias Paasch

In-app purchases

None

Lochan

No in-app purchases

None

PocketADM

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Lochan free?
Lochan is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is PocketADM free?
PocketADM is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Lochan or PocketADM have ads?
Neither Lochan nor PocketADM shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lochan or PocketADM?
Lochan ships an update fortnightly, and PocketADM every 3 weeks. Most recently, Lochan was updated on October 10, 2026 and PocketADM on October 10, 2026.

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