Orca alternatives
Orca is an MIT-licensed desktop app for running CLI coding agents in parallel, one git worktree per task. People look for alternatives when they want a terminal program instead of a desktop app, bundled agents and cloud workspaces, a task board, or a different license and platform mix. Each reason below comes from the tools' records. Data as of 2026-09-30.
- Conductor: Closed-source macOS app with the same worktree-per-workspace model, Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode bundled, and paid cloud workspaces. See Orca vs Conductor. (comparison)
- Superset: macOS desktop app with worktrees, per-workspace ports, a CLI, SDK and MCP server; Elastic License 2.0 and paid Pro features. See Orca vs Superset. (comparison)
- Paseo: Self-hosted daemon with desktop, mobile, web and CLI clients, where agents can spawn other agents through optional tools.
- T3 Code: MIT control surface with threads in worktrees and one-prompt fan-out to several models; still on 0.0.x releases.
- Herdr: Terminal alternative: an Apache-2.0 Rust binary that keeps agent panes alive in a background server and exposes a CLI and socket API; no built-in diff review.
- Claude Squad: Smaller terminal option: tmux sessions and git worktrees with a diff tab, AGPL-3.0.
- Multica: If you want tickets rather than workspaces: a task board that assigns issues to agents running on connected machines.
Facts
| Tool | Type | Languages | License | Pricing | Pattern | MCP | A2A | AG-UI | Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orca | Orchestrator | TypeScript | MIT | Open source, free | Other | Partial evidence | Unknown | Unknown | 82,020 |
| Conductor | Platform | Not applicable (hosted product) | Proprietary | Hosted, paid | Other | Yes evidence | Unknown | Unknown | — |
| Superset | Orchestrator | TypeScript | unknown | Open core | Supervisor | Yes evidence | Unknown | Unknown | 14,764 |
| Paseo | Orchestrator | TypeScript | unknown | Open core | Supervisor | Yes evidence | Unknown | Unknown | 19,066 |
| T3 Code | Orchestrator | TypeScript | MIT | Open source, free | Other | Yes evidence | Unknown | Unknown | 23,963 |
| Herdr | Orchestrator | Rust | Apache-2.0 | Open source, free | Other | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | 41,580 |
| Claude Squad | Orchestrator | Go | AGPL-3.0 | Open source, free | Other | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | 8,551 |
| Multica | Platform | Go, TypeScript | unknown | Open core | Supervisor | Partial evidence | Unknown | Unknown | 51,737 |
Full details: Orca.