HerdrChat vs OpenAB Remote
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
HerdrChat
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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 Ā· 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
OpenAB Remote
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OpenAB Remote turns your iPhone into a private push-to-talk remote and terminal client for OpenAB Connect. Pair with your Mac over the local network, dictate with on-device speech recognition, and send only terminal-safe text to the selected session. Import your own runtime connections from OpenAB Connect, browse live sessions, and attach directly over your own Tailscale network. Choose your speech engine: Apple's on-device recognition (no download), or optionally download Whisper (OpenAI, MIT) or SenseVoice (Alibaba FunASR) to run on this iPhone ā SenseVoice is recommended for Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean. ⢠On-device push-to-talk transcription ⢠Direct terminal session attach and resume ⢠Remembered, encrypted nearby pairing ⢠Explicit Auto-Enter permission ⢠No account, analytics, advertising, or telemetry ⢠Optional Whisper engine: download an open-source model once (MIT) and run it fully on-device ⢠Fully offline Demo Mode for evaluation OpenAB Remote talks only to your Mac and infrastructure ā plus, only if you choose the Whisper engine, a one-time model download from Hugging Face. Your speech, credentials, and terminal sessions are not sent to an OpenAB service.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: HerdrChat at 17.0 against OpenAB Remote's 26.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HerdrChat | OpenAB Remote |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days | Every 2 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 ā better | 26.0 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | AHMET MERT COBANOGLU | Jiayan Lin |
In-app purchases
HerdrChat
No in-app purchases
OpenAB Remote
No in-app purchases









