Comparison

Heeler for herdr vs OpenAB Remote

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

Head to head
About

Heeler for herdr

Manage and interact with coding agents running on your machines through a unified console. View live terminals, draft prompts locally, and send messages securely. Offers encrypted notifications and direct agent controls.

Highlights
  • Unified agent console
  • Live terminal rendering
  • Native prompt composer
  • Direct agent controls
  • Encrypted notifications
  • QR pairing
Features
Read full description

Heeler is a native iOS companion for herdr, an agent-first terminal runtime. See every coding agent running on your machines in one priority-sorted console. Open an Agent to read and steer its live terminal, draft prompts locally with the standard iOS keyboard, and send complete messages when you are ready. FEATURES • Unified Agent Console across multiple Hosts • Live terminal rendering with native scrollback and touch scrolling • Native Composer with autocorrect, IME, dictation, and attachment staging • Direct Agent controls for Esc, Tab, arrows, Enter, and more • QR pairing with an on-device Ed25519 key • End-to-end encrypted notifications when an Agent is Blocked or Done • Worktree-based Agent launches • SSH Jump Host support • Independent light and dark terminal themes PRIVACY Heeler has no analytics or account system. SSH credentials stay in the iOS Keychain. Live terminal output and prompts travel directly between your device and your own Host over SSH. Notification content is encrypted on your Host before passing through the push relay. REQUIREMENTS Heeler requires access to a machine running herdr 0.7.5 or later with OpenSSH Remote Login enabled. Install the included herdr plugin to scan a Pairing Code and enable Agent Notifications. Heeler is an independent project and is not affiliated with the herdr project.

About

OpenAB Remote

Features
Read full description

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 — 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 — 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

Heeler for herdr4 screens
OpenAB Remote3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is chart position: Heeler for herdr at #140 against OpenAB Remote's unranked. Heeler for herdr also leads on iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Heeler for herdr ships an update every 4 days, OpenAB Remote every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 4, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 9 level
Heeler for herdr versus OpenAB Remote: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHeeler for herdrOpenAB Remote
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings4 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank#140 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB52 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer野 张Jiayan Lin

In-app purchases

None

Heeler for herdr

No in-app purchases

None

OpenAB Remote

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Heeler for herdr free?
Heeler for herdr is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is OpenAB Remote free?
OpenAB Remote is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Heeler for herdr or OpenAB Remote have ads?
Neither Heeler for herdr nor OpenAB Remote shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Heeler for herdr or OpenAB Remote?
Heeler for herdr ships an update every 4 days, and OpenAB Remote every 2 days. Most recently, Heeler for herdr was updated on October 4, 2026 and OpenAB Remote on October 7, 2026.

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