Comparison

Tailscode vs Shahi

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

Head to head
About

Tailscode

Interact with AI agents like Claude Code and Oh My Pi from your phone. Monitor and approve commands, view code changes, and manage conversations live on your lock screen. All data is transmitted point-to-point over your private network.

Highlights
  • Live Lock Screen Activities for conversations
  • Approve commands and answer agent questions
  • View code diffs and output inline
  • Manage multiple servers and conversations
  • Track conversation costs and model usage
  • End-to-end encrypted communication
Features
Read full description

Send a prompt to Claude Code, opencode or Oh My Pi from your phone, pocket it, and watch the turn finish on your Lock Screen. Approve the risky command, answer the agent's question, read the diff — over your own Tailscale network, with no relay, no account and no analytics. Free and open source. TRY IT BEFORE YOU WIRE ANYTHING A built-in demo walks every screen with sample conversations. No server needed. WHAT YOU NEED A Mac or Linux machine on your tailnet (Tailscale is free for personal use) running one of your agents: opencode, Claude Code through the open-source claude-bridge, or Oh My Pi through the open-source omp-bridge. Set-up is three verified steps. THE TURN, LIVE ON YOUR LOCK SCREEN • A Live Activity per conversation: what it is doing, for how long, and how many tools it has run. • An approval request alerts you; a finished turn lingers with its outcome. Tap to land in the exact chat. • Updates arrive by push while the app is suspended. A NATIVE TRANSCRIPT, NOT A TERMINAL • Streaming text written at the model's own speed, with thinking and tool runs folded into readable groups. • Diffs, commands and their real output inline; syntax-highlighted code with byte-exact copy. • Allow once, always, or deny without leaving the chat. Agent questions become tappable cards, and a failed turn says what happened and offers to try again. • One quiet row of facts — context, spend, branch, agents out — that steps aside when there is nothing to say. • Queue the next message while a turn runs, edit it before it goes, or stop the turn on the server. • Every picture the agent hands you, in a gallery you can zoom, save or share. EVERY MACHINE ON ONE BOARD • All your servers' conversations in one list, live status first, grouped by project. • Read the repository before you trust the change: branch, staged, changed, untracked, and the diff of any file. • Subagents dock inside the turn that spawned them; a compaction is drawn as a seam with what it kept. • Slash commands from the server's own catalog, per-message model and reasoning effort, forking. KNOW WHAT IT COSTS • Every conversation priced, every month totalled across machines — by model, project and tool. • Plan limits and quotas for Claude, Grok, Ollama Cloud, DeepSeek and more, on Home and in a widget. PICTURES AND CLIPS, ON YOUR OWN MACHINE • Describe an image or a short clip in words; it renders on your own machine and arrives in the app. HAND OFF THE ROUTINE WORK (BETA) • A cheaper model tries first and a verifier decides. Nothing lands until it passes. YOURS, END TO END • Point-to-point over your tailnet. No relay servers, no account, no analytics, nobody reading your code. • Programmatic UIKit, Swift 6, Liquid Glass on iOS 26. Eight themes, dark mode, Dynamic Type, haptics. • Open source under GPL-3.0 — the app, the engine, and both bridges. FREE, WITH AN HONEST PRO The free app is the complete core: one server, full chat, approvals, attachments, models, forking, and Live Activities. Tailscode Pro is a one-time purchase, no subscription: multiple saved servers, concurrent Live Activities, the delegate board, and a supporter badge. Tailscode is independent open-source software: not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic, Tailscale Inc., the opencode project or Oh My Pi. Privacy policy: https://midgarcorp.cc/tailscode/privacy Source code: https://github.com/guitaripod/Tailscode

About

Shahi

Features
Read full description

Your coding agents shouldn't stop just because you left your desk. Shahi turns the AI coding agents running on your own computer into a conversation on your phone. Read what they're doing like a chat, answer their questions with one tap, and start new work from anywhere, while your computer keeps going. WHAT YOU CAN DO • See every agent at a glance: which ones are working, which are done, and which are waiting on you. Add as many computers as you like and switch between them. • Answer permission prompts and questions in one tap. Before anything is pressed, the answer is checked against the agent's live screen. • Read conversations as clean messages, with tool activity tucked away, subagents and task lists shown, and images inline, instead of a terminal squeezed onto a small screen. • Reply, attach photos and files, pick a slash command, or tap a quick reply. • See what an agent changed: the files and the diff, without leaving the conversation. • Start a new agent in any project, with the permission mode you choose. • Open the real terminal whenever you need it, with a key bar for the keys a phone lacks. • Preview files and PDFs from your computer. • Keep an eye on your Claude Code and Codex plan limits. WORKS WITH YOUR SETUP Shahi connects to herdr, the open-source terminal workspace for coding agents, on your own Mac or Linux computer, so your phone shows the same workspaces and agents as your desk. Reader works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and Antigravity. Setup is one command on your computer and one QR scan; no VPN and no port forwarding. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • End-to-end encrypted. The relay that connects your phone to your computer can't read your conversations. • Prefer no third party at all? Connect over your own SSH instead. • Your code and conversations stay on your computer. There's no account to create. • Open source, under the MIT license. Available in English, Arabic and Spanish. WHAT YOU NEED A Mac or Linux computer running herdr with the free Shahi plugin. Get started at getshahi.dev.

Screenshots

Tailscode4 screens
Shahi4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shahi at none against Tailscode's 4. Shahi also leads on iOS requirement (16.4 vs 18.0). Tailscode's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence and ads 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. Tailscode sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Shahi asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Tailscode ships an update every 2 days, Shahi every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
Tailscode versus Shahi: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTailscodeShahi
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterEvery 4 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size49 MB55 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMidgar OyYasser Aldosari

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Tailscode

One-time4
  • Small Tip$2.99
  • Generous Tip$9.99
  • Tailscode Pro$14.99
Show 1 more
  • Lavish Tip$19.99
None

Shahi

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Tailscode free?
Tailscode is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Shahi free?
Shahi is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Tailscode or Shahi have ads?
Neither Tailscode nor Shahi shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Tailscode or Shahi?
Tailscode ships an update every 2 days, and Shahi every 4 days. Most recently, Tailscode was updated on October 31, 2026 and Shahi on October 29, 2026.

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