Pick Limrun if your agent builds iOS and Android apps and you want cloud Xcode and simulators to build and run them on. Pick Mobilerun if you want monthly minute plans, dedicated phones or its own hosted agent; pick Mobilebox, cloud Android phones for AI agents at $0.01 a minute and ready for a first screenshot in 19.4 s in our November 2026 benchmark, if your own agent should get phones over REST and MCP, billed per second.
Sources reviewed on November 8, 2026: limrun.com, Mobilerun pricing, the Mobilerun repository and the official MCP registry. Each row quotes the vendor’s own pages; where a page doesn’t say something, the table says "not stated". All three are good products for different jobs.
Measured timings: /benchmarks.
What each one is
- Limrun describes "real-time remote Xcode, iOS & Android Simulators" for agents that build, test and share mobile apps, with an MCP server at mcp.limrun.com/mcp and warm builds from a cache. Pricing "is split between idle and build time"; the home page shows no rate.
- Mobilerun started as an open-source agent framework and now sells plans of device minutes for "on-demand Android phones" (free 60 minutes, then $20 for 600 up to $299 for 9,000, extra minutes $0.03), plus dedicated phones by the month, billed yearly: an Android phone with a dedicated residential IP for $64, a "real, physical iPhone" for $160, or your own phone connected for $4.
- Mobilebox gives your agent cloud Android 14 phones, iPhones and iPads and real Android devices over one REST API and a hosted MCP server. Your agent does the reasoning; Mobilebox bills phone-minutes per second.
Side by side
| Limrun | Mobilerun | Mobilebox | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phones | iOS and Android simulators, cloud Xcode | Android plan phones, dedicated Android and physical iPhones, your own phone | Cloud Android, iPhone and iPad, real Android |
| Agent connection | MCP, API, CLI | Framework, harness, hosted agent | Hosted MCP and REST |
| Price | Not stated on the home page | Monthly minute plans; $0.03 extra minutes | $0.01 per Android phone-minute, iPhone $0.05, real Android $0.03; per second |
| Stopped phone | Not stated | Keeps apps and data, no minutes billed | Parked: keeps apps, data and logins, free |
How to decide
- Your agent writes an iOS app and has to build it: Limrun’s cloud Xcode does the build step. Mobilebox runs the app on an iPhone once you have the build; see testing iPhone apps your agent built.
- You want an agent included: Mobilerun’s framework and hosted agent bring their own. With Mobilebox you bring yours: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or any framework in Integrations.
- You pay for what runs: Mobilebox has no plan or minimum beyond one minute per session, and boot time is free.
Run the same APK on each shortlisted service and keep the calls, errors and billed time. The wider comparison adds phonebox.dev, Clousd and Ramus, and Mobilebox or Mobilerun goes deeper on the framework question.