Comparison

HerdrChat vs Drover

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

Head to head
About

HerdrChat

Features
Read full description

Your coding agents, away from your desk. HerdrChat is an SSH chat client for Claude Code, Codex and OMP sessions running on a computer you own. Check progress, read conversations and answer an agent without navigating a desktop terminal on a small screen. STAY ON TOP OF YOUR WORK See which conversations need your input, which agents are working and which are idle. Replies read like a document, with code and formatting, and each run of tool activity folds into one line ("Ran 3 commands ยท edited 1 file") you can open. The chat header shows the model and effort level. Reply from the chat composer or use supported numbered choices when an agent asks for approval. Pin the chats you care about to the top, and mute notifications for the ones you don't. SLASH COMMANDS Type / to send Claude Code commands such as /model, /effort, /compact and /context. When a command opens a picker, it appears on your phone: choose a model or effort level and apply it for this session only or as your default. KNOW WHEN AN AGENT NEEDS YOU Turn on notifications and your computer tells you when an agent is waiting for you or has finished, with the chat's name and what the agent said. Tap one to open that chat. SEND A PICTURE Attach screenshots or photos to a message. They are copied to your computer over the same SSH connection and handed to the agent with your prompt. MADE FOR iPHONE AND iPAD On iPhone, move between your chats, hosts and settings. On iPad, keep the conversation list beside the selected chat, with a settings layout designed for the larger screen. Light and dark appearances are included. YOUR MACHINE, YOUR CONNECTION Connect over SSH using your own password or private key. Host-key fingerprints are pinned, and a changed host key stops the connection until you explicitly review it. Tailscale is recommended for reaching your computer privately. Credentials are kept in the device Keychain. Conversation caches stay on your device and can be cleared in Settings. HerdrChat has no account system, developer-operated chat server, advertising or analytics SDK. If you turn on notifications, they pass through a small HerdrChat relay that forwards them to Apple and keeps nothing. TRY THE BUILT-IN DEMO A short welcome on first launch walks through what your computer needs. The local Demo host is available without an account, server or purchase. Explore sample conversations, answer an approval prompt and send a sample message. Demo replies are simulated; nothing is sent to a computer or AI service. WHAT YOU NEED FOR REAL USE A computer you administer, reachable over SSH, with herdr and Claude Code, Codex or OMP installed and configured. Agent accounts and any provider charges are separate and are not supplied by HerdrChat. The agents and their commands run on your computer, not on your iPhone or iPad. HerdrChat does not include an AI subscription. Open source under Apache-2.0: github.com/cobanov/herdrchat

About

Drover

Supervise AI coding agents running on your computer directly from your phone. View sessions as a chat, interact with prompts via buttons, and receive notifications when agents need your input. Connects directly via SSH with no intermediary servers.

Highlights
  • Supervise AI coding agents
  • View sessions as chat
  • Interact with prompts via buttons
  • Receive agent status notifications
  • Direct SSH connection
  • Voice dictation
  • Attach photos to agents
Features
Read full description

Drover is a mobile client for the AI coding agents you run under Herdr on your own computer. It turns them into something you can supervise from your phone. It is not a mobile terminal. Drover speaks the agent's language: it renders a running session as a readable chat, turns permission prompts into buttons you can tap, and tells you the moment an agent is waiting on you. NO SERVER IN BETWEEN Drover connects straight from your device to your own machine over SSH. There is no service in the middle. Your transcripts, your commands and your code go to your machine โ€” the developer of this app cannot see them. The voice assistant is an experimental, opt-in exception: it sends to Google, not to the developer, after you accept its disclosure. WHAT YOU CAN DO โ€ข See every agent and its status at a glance โ€” waiting for you, working, done โ€ข Read the session as a chat, with Markdown, syntax-highlighted code and diffs โ€ข Answer an agent's permission prompt by tapping a button instead of typing into a raw terminal pane โ€ข Send follow-up instructions, cycle the agent's mode, or dictate by voice โ€ข Talk to an agent hands-free with the experimental voice assistant โ€” launch it, send it a message, or answer its question, and hear back what's happening โ€ข Attach a photo from your camera or library for the agent to look at โ€ข Get a notification the moment an agent is blocked and needs you โ€ข Switch between several machines, or watch them all in one list TRY IT WITH NO SETUP Tap "Try the demo" on the first screen. It runs a scripted session entirely on your device, with no host and no connection, so you can see how Drover works before setting anything up. WHAT YOU NEED Drover is a client for a machine you already own. To use it for real you need a computer running Herdr (herdr.dev) with your coding agents in it, SSH access to that machine with key-based authentication, and Herdr 0.8.0 or newer. PRIVACY Dictation runs entirely on your device โ€” Drover will not fa The experimental voice assistant is different: it asks for your consent before first use, and while a voice session is running your speech transcripts, agent context and message drafts are sent to Google's Gemini. Notifications carry a fixed message and never any of your t key is stored in the iOS Keychain and never leaves your device. Drover is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Herdr project, Anthropic, OpenAI, or GitHu certified by any of them.

Screenshots

HerdrChat4 screens
Drover4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: HerdrChat at every 2 days against Drover's every 5 days. Drover's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). 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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

HerdrChat ships an update every 2 days, Drover every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 6 level
HerdrChat versus Drover: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHerdrChatDrover
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviewsโ€”100.0% of reviews
Update frequencyEvery 2 days โ€” betterEvery 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetizationโ€”Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS17.015.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size48 MB38 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAHMET MERT COBANOGLUKEISUKE NISHITANI

In-app purchases

None

HerdrChat

No in-app purchases

None

Drover

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is HerdrChat free?
HerdrChat is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Drover free?
Drover is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do HerdrChat or Drover have ads?
Neither HerdrChat nor Drover shows ads.
Which is updated more often, HerdrChat or Drover?
HerdrChat ships an update every 2 days, and Drover every 5 days. Most recently, HerdrChat was updated on October 12, 2026 and Drover on October 10, 2026.

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