Omnara alternative: Omnara pivoted, so what now for mobile users?

Short answer

If you're searching for an Omnara alternative, it's probably because the Omnara you knew, the app that let you drive Claude Code and Codex from your phone, isn't there anymore. That checks out. On September 2, 2026, Omnara relaunched as an open-source managed agent platform, positioned against Claude Managed Agents and OpenAI's Agents API. Its old mobile-coding blog post now carries a note saying it covers "Omnara's previous remote coding product" and is kept for historical reference, and the iOS app no longer resolves on the App Store.

BotBus covers part of what old Omnara did. Your agents run on your own computer, you keep starting sessions the way you already do (terminal, the Codex app, the Claude desktop app), and when you step away you check progress, approve requests and reply from an iPhone, Apple Watch or Android phone. If what you actually want is the new Omnara, an API for running agents in cloud sandboxes or on your machines and wiring them into your product or Slack, stay with Omnara. BotBus doesn't do that.

Everything below about Omnara comes from the omnara-ai/omnara GitHub repo, omnara.com (home, pricing and blog), the changelog in its docs, and the founders' Launch HN post from February 2026. I checked all of it on October 16, 2026.

What Omnara is today

What it used to be. The Launch HN post (February 12, 2026) described Omnara as a web and mobile "agentic IDE" for Claude Code and Codex. You ran omnara inside a git repo, which started a headless Claude Code or Codex session on your machine, and the session showed up in the web and mobile apps right away. From there you could keep talking to it or start new sessions remotely, with or without worktrees. A small daemon on your machine made only outbound connections, so there was no port forwarding or SSH involved. If your laptop went offline, it could move the session to a hosted cloud sandbox, and it had a two-way voice agent. Pricing at the time was 10 free sessions a month, then $20/month. The founders also said their first version, which piped Claude Code CLI messages to the phone, was fragile, and that they'd rebuilt the whole thing on the Claude Agent SDK so it could run the agent loop itself.

What it is now. The repo now describes Omnara as "the open-source managed agent platform," Apache-2.0, self-hostable, and an alternative to Claude Managed Agents and OpenAI's Agents API. Releases still ship often (omnarad v0.2.6 came out the day I checked). You define an agent in agent.yaml with a model, tools and the machines it runs on, then launch it from the CLI, the TypeScript SDK or the REST API. Models can be OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter or self-hosted. Machines can be managed sandboxes or your own laptop, VM or container running the omnarad daemon, which only connects outbound. It also has approvals for risky tool calls, Slack/Discord/GitHub integrations, scheduled runs, subagents and an MCP endpoint.

Pricing. According to the pricing page, the platform itself is free. Bringing your own model keys and machines costs nothing. Omnara-managed models are billed at provider token rates, managed machines are billed by memory-hour and retention, self-hosting is free, and there's an enterprise tier.

Where the phone app went. As of the check date:

• The homepage and pricing page don't mention a mobile app or remote control for Claude Code or Codex.
• The blog post comparing mobile coding tools now opens with a note saying it covers Omnara's previous remote coding product and is kept for historical reference.
• The omnara package on PyPI is marked as a deprecated redirect.
• The App Store listing for "Omnara: Claude & Codex Mobile" returns a 404 at its old URL, and an App Store lookup by its ID returns nothing in the US or China storefronts.

I couldn't find an official shutdown announcement, and I don't know whether the old backend still runs. If the app is still on your phone and still works, you can keep using it, but it's worth having a plan.

When Omnara is the better fit

The new Omnara and BotBus aren't the same kind of product anymore. Choose Omnara if you need:

• Agents inside your own product or team workflow. You launch agents through an API or SDK, stream events back and handle approvals over the API. BotBus has no public API or SDK.
• Agents in cloud sandboxes or across machines. Omnara handles sandboxes, durable execution and conversation history, so an agent can pick up again after a crash. BotBus only manages agents already installed on your own computer, and they stop when that computer does.
• Agents started from Slack, Discord or GitHub, or on a schedule. That's Omnara's focus now. BotBus has no chat-platform integrations or scheduled runs.
• Open source and self-hosting. The whole platform is Apache-2.0 and runs under Docker Compose. BotBus apps are closed source. Only the protocol, connectors and test fixtures are public, and you have to use our relay.
• Freedom to choose models. Omnara runs its own agent loop, so any model works. BotBus drives existing agents like Codex and Claude Code. They decide which models you can use, and when you switch models from your phone you're limited to what that agent supports.

How BotBus is different

If you used Omnara because your agent kept stalling on a question while you were away from your desk, that's the problem BotBus is built for. Here's how it differs.

Your existing sessions, no wrapper command

Old Omnara had you run omnara in your repo and started the session for you. BotBus works the other way around. It runs in the background on your computer and finds the sessions you already start. For Codex, it reads the local session data under ~/.codex (read-only) and needs no setup. For Claude Code, you install the hooks once from BotBus settings, and sessions you start in the terminal or the Claude desktop app show up on your phone along with their permission requests. You can reply to those sessions from your phone (see continue an agent session on your phone), and a session you start on your phone can be picked up again on the computer.

More than Claude Code and Codex

BotBus has built-in support for Codex, Claude Code, Hermes, Pi, OpenClaw and DeepSeek Harness. Agents that implement ACP, such as OpenCode, can connect too (see connecting an agent). One phone app shows agents across several computers.

Watch, notifications and voice

Push notifications only go out when an agent needs an approval, is waiting on your reply, finishes or fails, and they depend on the notification permissions you grant. See push notifications for coding agents. The Apple Watch app syncs pairing from the iPhone and then connects on its own. On the watch you can check tasks, approve requests, answer multiple-choice questions and reply by dictation. See Apple Watch for AI coding agents. The iPhone composer has voice input that turns speech into text before sending. That's dictation, though, not the conversational voice agent Omnara had.

Previews and remote access to your computer

The Mac version can share a local dev server to your phone for preview (see preview localhost on iPhone). From your phone you can also browse files and open a terminal on the computer. On a Mac you can also see the live screen, tap and type, which helps when an agent is stuck on a system permission dialog or a simulator.

Security model

Tasks, conversations, commands and artifacts pass through the relay inside end-to-end encrypted envelopes. The group key reaches your phone only through the pairing QR code on your computer, never through the server. The server can see device IDs, online status, update times and data sizes, and dev previews aren't end-to-end encrypted. Details are in the security notes.

Using both, and switching

The two products barely overlap now, so you can use both. Run new Omnara for cloud or team agents, and use BotBus for the Codex and Claude Code sessions on your own machine.

To move from old Omnara to BotBus:

1. Install the desktop app from the download section. There are versions for macOS 26 or later, Linux and Windows 10/11. Then install BotBus on your phone. iPhone and Apple Watch are on the App Store, and Android needs 8.0 or later.
2. Open the pairing QR code on your computer and scan it with your phone.
3. Install the Claude Code hooks from BotBus settings. Codex needs nothing extra.
4. From now on, run claude or codex directly instead of going through omnara. If sessions old Omnara started are in Claude Code's or Codex's own session history, claude --resume or codex resume picks them up, and they appear in BotBus as usual. Conversations that only exist on Omnara's servers aren't visible to BotBus.

Limits

• Your computer has to stay on and online. This is the biggest gap compared with old Omnara. Omnara could move a session to a cloud sandbox when your laptop went offline. BotBus can't, so when the computer sleeps or shuts down, the agent stops. See keep your Mac awake for AI agents.
• What you can do depends on the connector and the task state. Some tasks are view-only. Approving, replying, starting and stopping all need the computer online and the agent to support the action. For example, Pi has no approvals, and ACP agents have no "agent is asking a question" signal.
• Sending images from your phone only works with Codex and Claude Code, up to 10 MiB per attachment.
• Some features are Mac-only. Screen control and dev previews are only on the Mac. On Linux and Windows, remote access covers files and the terminal.
• Closed source, no self-hosted relay. If either matters to you, the open-source Omnara platform or another self-hostable tool fits better.

FAQ

Does Omnara still have a mobile app?

As of October 16, 2026, "Omnara: Claude & Codex Mobile" can't be found on the App Store, and the Omnara site no longer mentions a phone app. The new Omnara has a web dashboard, a CLI and Slack/Discord/GitHub integrations.

Are Omnara and BotBus still competitors?

Only if you're comparing against old Omnara. The new Omnara is a platform for developers to run agents in the cloud or on their own machines. BotBus brings the Codex, Claude Code and other sessions already running on your computer to your phone and watch. You can use both.

Can BotBus keep running when my laptop goes offline, like Omnara did?

No. BotBus manages agents on your own computer and has no cloud sandbox. If you need agents running around the clock, put them on an always-on Mac or Linux box and manage that box from your phone with BotBus.

What else replaces Omnara's mobile remote control?

The official options are Claude Code Remote Control and Codex in the ChatGPT app (see Claude Code Remote Control alternatives and Codex in the ChatGPT app vs BotBus). For third-party tools, see the Happy Coder alternative and Paseo alternative posts. Each one covers when the other tool is the better choice.