vs third-party
Maude vs Omnara
Omnara started out as a way to watch Claude Code from your phone. Its website now sells something else: an open-source platform for deploying agents through an API. Here's what Omnara is today, what happened to the mobile app, and how Maude compares.
Quick answer
Omnara now presents itself as an open-source (Apache-2.0) API platform for deploying and running agents, free to self-host or to use with your own machines and model keys. Its free mobile app for Claude Code and Codex is still in the stores; its most recent store updates we found are from April 2026. Maude is a paid phone app that runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Grok Build and Antigravity on your own server and installs itself over SSH. Pick Omnara if you're building agents for your users or want free and open source. Pick Maude to drive coding agents on your own server from your phone.
When we first wrote this comparison in July 2026, Omnara (YC S25) was mainly a way to mirror Claude Code and Codex sessions to your phone. The product has changed since. Omnara's homepage now calls it "the open-source alternative to Claude Managed Agents": one API to deploy and run agents for your users and team, on any model, machine or cloud. Its pricing page reflects that. The mobile app is still listed in both stores, so both halves are covered below.
Maude is narrower and aimed at one job: running coding agents on a server you own and driving them from an iPhone, iPad or Android phone.
What Omnara is now
Omnara's platform treats agents as durable API objects, and an open-source control plane manages their state, machines, permissions and history. The code is on GitHub under Apache-2.0 and was being updated at the time of writing. The audience is developers and teams who want to run agents for someone, such as their own users or colleagues, without being tied to one vendor's models or cloud.
That's a different job from Maude's. Maude doesn't offer an API for deploying agents into your product. It's an app for one person, or a few, to run and supervise coding agents on their own machines.
Mobile app
The app "Omnara: Claude & Codex Mobile" is still on the App Store and Google Play. It's free, and the App Store lists no in-app purchases. Its description says it lets you control Claude Code and Codex running on your laptop from your phone. Listed features include monitoring progress, approving changes, a voice mode and multi-agent orchestration. Version 2.0.5 added Apple Watch support.
On 1 October 2026 the most recent App Store release was 2.0.5, dated 7 April 2026, and the Play listing showed a last update of 9 April 2026. Omnara's website now leads with the API platform rather than the app. We don't know Omnara's plans for the app. If you depend on it, check the store listings for newer releases before you commit to it.
Agents supported
The Omnara mobile app is described as covering Claude Code and Codex. The platform is model-agnostic: you bring model keys or use Omnara-managed models at provider token rates.
Maude drives five coding agents, each signed in with your own account or key: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Grok Build and Antigravity. The app installs each one on your server at a tested, pinned version, checksum-verified, and keeps it updated. When a session is idle you can hand it to a different agent along with a brief: the plan, files touched, git state and recent conversation. Our post on handing off tasks between coding agents explains how that works.
Pricing
Omnara's pricing page lists a Self-Serve tier with a $0 platform fee. Bringing your own model keys and connecting your own machines cost nothing, and self-hosting is free under Apache-2.0. Omnara-managed models are billed at provider token rates, and Omnara-managed machines are metered at $0.0414 per GiB of memory per hour online. Enterprise is custom-priced. The mobile app itself is free.
Maude is $2.99 a week after a 3-day free trial, or $29.99 a year after a 7-day free trial. There's no free tier. The subscription covers the app; agent plans and the server are separate. If cost is the deciding factor, Omnara wins.
Self-hosting and where data goes
Omnara's platform is open source, so you can run all of it on your own infrastructure under Apache-2.0, and its Enterprise tier offers on-premises deployment. For a team that needs the control plane in-house, that's a real advantage. Maude can't match it, because Maude's relay isn't self-hostable.
Maude's model is different. Your code and your agents stay on your server. The app reaches the daemon there through Maude's relay, end-to-end encrypted with a per-server key, so the relay forwards ciphertext it can't read. The server dials out to the relay, so it needs no open inbound port and works behind NAT, a firewall or a tailnet. SSH is used to deploy the daemon and as the fallback connection. In both products the agent still sends context to its model provider, exactly as it would in a terminal.
Side by side
| Omnara | Maude | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Open-source API platform for deploying agents, plus a mobile app for Claude Code and Codex | Phone app for running coding agents on your own server |
| Price | $0 platform fee; managed machines and models metered; app free | $2.99/week after a 3-day trial or $29.99/year after a 7-day trial |
| Open source | Yes, Apache-2.0 | No |
| Coding agents on the phone | Claude Code, Codex | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Grok Build, Antigravity |
| Where agents run | Your machine, or Omnara-managed machines | Your Linux or macOS server, reached over SSH |
| Agent versions | Whatever is on your machine | Pinned, tested versions the app installs and updates |
| Voice, Apple Watch | Listed in the app | No |
| Live localhost previews | Listed in the app | No; Files, Git (diff, commit, push, PR) and Terminal tabs instead |
| API for deploying agents to your users | Yes, that's the core product | No |
| Latest app version (checked 1 Oct 2026) | 2.0.5 (App Store, 7 Apr 2026; Play listing updated 9 Apr 2026) | 2.0 |
Omnara details checked on omnara.com, its pricing page and both store listings on 1 October 2026.
Verdict
Pick Omnara if you're building a product or internal tool that runs agents for other people and want an open-source, self-hostable control plane. Also pick it if you want a free mobile app for Claude Code and Codex and its current release does what you need, including voice and Apple Watch.
Pick Maude if you want to run coding agents yourself on a server you own and supervise them from your phone. You get five agents, an inbox with inline approvals, push with Allow/Deny, built-in files, git and a terminal, and a daemon that installs and updates itself.
If you're looking for an Omnara alternative for the phone side, Maude is one option, and there are others. Happier is free and open source with many agents, and our roundup of coding-agent phone apps covers the rest, including the official apps from Anthropic and OpenAI.
Frequently asked questions
Is Omnara free?
Does Omnara still have a mobile app?
What's a good Omnara alternative?
Does Maude host my agents?
What changed
- — Rewritten: Omnara now positions itself as an open-source agent API platform. Added current pricing and the mobile app's last store update dates, and updated Maude to version 2 (five agents, relay, files, git and terminal).
- — First published.
