Maude vs Claude Code Remote Control
Anthropic ships its own way to drive Claude Code from a phone, and it costs nothing extra. Here is what Remote Control does well, where it stops, and the narrow set of cases where paying for Maude actually makes sense.
If you want Claude Code on your phone, start with the free option. Anthropic's Remote Control connects the Claude iOS/Android app to a Claude Code session running on your own computer, and it is included with the Pro or Max plan you already pay for. For a lot of people that is the whole answer, and this page will happily tell you to use it.
Maude solves a narrower problem: driving Claude Code on a server you own, with full permissions, whether or not any of your own machines are switched on. Below is where each one lands.
What Remote Control actually is
Remote Control is a feature of the Claude app rather than a separate product. You start a session on your computer with claude remote-control, or run /remote-control in a session that is already open, then pick that session up in the app's Code tab. Code execution and filesystem access stay on your machine; the phone is a remote control, exactly as the name suggests.
It sits alongside two other first-party options in the same tab: cloud sessions (Claude Code on the web, which runs on Anthropic's infrastructure and requires your repository to be on GitHub) and Dispatch, which hands a task to the Desktop app. Anthropic's mobile documentation covers all three.
Push notifications are included: when Remote Control is active, Claude can notify your phone when a long task finishes or when it needs a decision.
What Maude is
Maude is a third-party mobile client that reaches Claude Code over plain SSH. You point it at any Linux machine you can reach — a €4/month VPS, a box at work, a container on your own desktop — and it runs the real Claude Code CLI there, streaming the session back to your phone. Your credentials stay in the device keychain; nothing runs on our servers.
Side by side
| Remote Control | Maude | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Included with Pro / Max | $2.99/week or $59.99/year, on top of your Claude plan |
| Where code runs | Your computer | Any Linux host you control |
| Needs a machine left on | Yes — your computer, with Claude Code running | No, if you point it at a VPS |
| Bypass permissions from the phone | Not selectable in the app | Yes — full permissions, no approval prompts |
| Permission modes on mobile | Manual, Accept edits, Plan | Full permissions |
/resume from the phone | Not supported in the app | Yes |
| Setup | Run one command, scan a QR code | Provision a server, add SSH credentials, authenticate |
| Repository requirements | None for Remote Control (cloud sessions need GitHub) | None |
| Session survives inactivity | Can expire after a long idle period | Persists on your server |
| Made by | Anthropic | Pilot Dev (independent) |
Remote Control details verified against Anthropic's published documentation in July 2026. Features move quickly — check the docs for the current state.
The permissions difference
This is the sharpest split, and it is documented by Anthropic rather than claimed by us. From the Claude app, cloud sessions offer Accept edits, Plan and Auto; Remote Control sessions offer Manual, Accept edits and Plan. You cannot select Bypass permissions from the app in either case, and you cannot select Auto for a Remote Control session.
In practice that means a long agentic run will stop and wait for you. That is a perfectly reasonable default — it is the safe one — but it is the opposite of what you want when the entire point is to fire off a task at a bus stop and read the result later.
Maude runs Claude Code with full permissions and no approval prompts. That is only a sane thing to do because of where it runs: a disposable VPS or an isolated container, not your laptop with your SSH keys and your browser profile on it. If you are going to grant an agent free rein, grant it somewhere you would not mind rebuilding. Our guide to full permissions without the risk covers how to set that boundary properly.
The always-on difference
Remote Control and Dispatch both drive your own machine, so it has to stay on with Claude Code or the Desktop app running. Anthropic is explicit about this, and notes that if your machine sleeps mid-session it reconnects when it comes back online. If your laptop lives in a bag between a desk and a train, that is a real constraint.
Anthropic's answer for the laptop-closed case is cloud sessions, which run on their infrastructure and keep going after you put the phone away. The trade is that your repository needs to be on GitHub and the work happens in an environment they manage.
A VPS answers the same question differently: it is always on, it is yours, it has your toolchain and your private registries and your database on it, and no repository needs to leave your infrastructure. That is the case Maude is built for.
Use Remote Control if you have a desktop that is usually on, you are comfortable approving steps as they come, and you would rather not pay for or maintain another thing. It is free, first-party, and takes about a minute to set up.
Use cloud sessions if your code is on GitHub and you want work to continue with everything of yours switched off.
Use Maude if you want an agent running unattended at full permissions on a server you own — private repos, internal infrastructure, several projects on several hosts, sessions that are still there next week.
Where Maude is the worse choice
Worth saying plainly, because a comparison page that never concedes anything is not worth reading:
- It costs money, and the server costs money too. Remote Control costs nothing on top of a plan you already hold.
- Setup is longer. Provisioning a VPS and authenticating Claude Code on it is more work than scanning a QR code.
- You own the box. Patching, firewalls and backups are yours. An agent with full permissions on a machine you have not isolated is a genuinely bad idea.
- It is not first-party. When Claude Code changes, Anthropic's own surfaces track it immediately and we follow behind.
- If your work is on GitHub and you just want it done, cloud sessions are less moving parts than anything self-hosted.
