The names are one letter apart and both are MIT-licensed desktop apps that orchestrate agents, so they get confused. They are not the same thing. Orca fans one prompt across several coding agents in isolated git worktrees and lets you keep the best result — Orkas has nothing like that. Orkas divides one job across specialist agents for video, slides, documents and research — Orca is built for code.
Both MIT, both desktop, both orchestrate agents. One races coding agents against each other; the other divides one job across specialists.
| Capability | OrkasThis site | OrcaParallel coding agents |
|---|---|---|
| Racing several agents on the same task | One task, one plan, agents take different parts | Fan one prompt across agents in isolated worktrees, keep the winner |
| How many coding agents it can drive | Five: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Hermes | Dozens, plus any CLI agent that runs in a terminal |
| Carrying on from a phone or a server | Desktop only — it stops when you close it | Desktop, iOS and Android, and a headless VPS |
| Working on a frontend in a live browser | Writes the files; you run the project | An embedded browser with a design mode |
| Deliverables that are not code | Video, slides, office documents, images, reports | Markdown, images, PDFs and repo docs — around the code |
| Specialists with different jobs | Research, writing, video, slides, documents — each its own agent | Many agents, all of them coding agents |
| Starting with no subscription of your own | Managed official models, or your own provider key | Bring a subscription for whichever agent you run |
| Using it without git or a terminal | Describe the outcome; there is no repo to set up | Worktrees are the mechanism, so a repo comes first |
Two of the rows above are not close calls. If you want the same prompt run by five agents so you can keep the best answer, that is Orca's core mechanic and Orkas has nothing like it. If you want the work to continue on your phone or a server, Orkas is a desktop app and stops when you close it. What Orkas adds is the half of shipping that is not code at all.
You probably should not pick one — Use each tool for the job it is built for, and pass the resulting files into Orkas when you need a coordinated, reviewable deliverable.
Both are MIT and both run on your machine, so keeping both costs nothing but disk.
Let Orca race the coding agents. Comparing five takes on one change is what it is built for.
When the code is merged, the release is still half done — notes, video, launch page, comparison pages.
Open Orkas on the same folder for that half. It reads what the repo already contains.
No. They are separate projects by different teams that happen to have similar names. Orca is an orchestrator for running coding agents in parallel, each in its own git worktree. Orkas is a desktop team of specialist agents that produces files — video, slides, documents, sites. Both are MIT licensed and both run on your machine, which is where the resemblance ends.
Not in the way Orca does. Orkas can drive five CLI agents — Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, OpenClaw and Hermes — but it assigns them different parts of one plan rather than racing them on the same prompt in isolated worktrees. If comparing several takes on the same change is what you want, that is Orca's core mechanic.
No. Orkas is a desktop application and it stops when you close it. Orca runs on desktop, on iOS and Android, and headless on a VPS. If work has to continue while you are away from your machine, that is a real reason to choose Orca.
The half of shipping that is not code: the launch video, the editable deck, the office documents, the comparison and SEO pages, the report you send a customer. Those are separate specialist agents working on the same folders, and no repository is required to start.
Free, MIT licensed, and it works on the files already sitting on your machine.
