Comparison

Lochan vs Cowboy for Herdr

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

Cowboy for Herdr

Features
Read full description

Cowboy is the phone companion for Herdr, the terminal workspace manager for AI coding agents. It answers one question at a glance: does any agent need me? WHAT YOU SEE Every agent running in Herdr on your machine, ranked by what matters. Blocked agents waiting for an answer come first, in red you cannot miss. Finished turns you have not looked at come next. Working and idle agents stay calm below. Each card shows the agent's title, its workspace, the last lines of its terminal output and a plain-language line: "Waiting for your answer", "Finished, review the result", "Working, nothing needed". Open an agent for its full output, and when it is asking a question, its options are laid out as buttons. READ-ONLY BY DEFAULT Cowboy never types into an agent by accident. Input is off until you switch it on, the bar turns amber while it is on, and it switches itself off after ten minutes without a send. When it is on, quick keys (Esc, Enter, y, n, Ctrl-C, arrows) and a prompt field go straight to the live agent. YOUR MACHINE, YOUR NETWORK Cowboy connects over SSH to the machine where Herdr runs, and talks to Herdr's local socket from there. Over Tailscale SSH no key is needed at all. There are no accounts and no servers in between: nothing leaves your own connection. Private keys, if you use them, stay in the phone's keychain. WHAT YOU NEED Herdr (herdr.dev) running on a computer you can reach over SSH, for example your laptop or a development server. Cowboy does not run agents itself; it watches and drives the ones Herdr already manages. Works with the agents Herdr supports, including Claude Code and Codex.

Screenshots

Lochan4 screens
Cowboy for Herdr4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Lochan at none against Cowboy for Herdr's 2. Cowboy for Herdr's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs fortnightly) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads 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. Cowboy for Herdr sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Lochan asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lochan ships an update fortnightly, Cowboy for Herdr every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
Lochan versus Cowboy for Herdr: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLochanCowboy for Herdr
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 3 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” better
Requires iOS26.015.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size63 MB20 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperPurplecones, LLCCarl Erik Stromberg

In-app purchases

None

Lochan

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Cowboy for Herdr

One-time2
  • 3-day TrialFree
  • Unlock Cowboy$9.99

Questions

Is Lochan free?
Lochan is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cowboy for Herdr free?
Cowboy for Herdr is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Lochan or Cowboy for Herdr have ads?
Neither Lochan nor Cowboy for Herdr shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lochan or Cowboy for Herdr?
Lochan ships an update fortnightly, and Cowboy for Herdr every 3 days. Most recently, Lochan was updated on November 1, 2026 and Cowboy for Herdr on October 29, 2026.

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