Comparison

Lochan vs CmdForge

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
Read full description

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

CmdForge

Read full description

CmdForge is a command and snippet organizer for personal use. Save commands and text snippets you use often, organize them into groups, and copy them with one tap. Search finds a saved command quickly. Everything is stored locally on your device. There are no accounts, no ads, and no analytics. An optional feature lets you sync your commands to a Google Sheet. This requires your own Google Cloud service account credentials, which you create and manage yourself. CmdForge does not run its own servers and does not see your data.

Screenshots

Lochan4 screens
CmdForge4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: CmdForge at 16.4 against Lochan's 26.0. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
Lochan versus CmdForge: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLochanCmdForge
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyFortnightlyโ€”
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS26.016.4 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size63 MB40 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperPurplecones, LLCBrian Imai

In-app purchases

None

Lochan

No in-app purchases

None

CmdForge

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Lochan free?
Lochan is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is CmdForge free?
CmdForge is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Lochan or CmdForge have ads?
Neither Lochan nor CmdForge shows ads.

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