Orcyx and Orca (onorca.dev) are both agent development environments - desktop apps built for running AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini in parallel. Orca is a free, MIT-licensed, worktree-first agent IDE by Stably, Inc. Orcyx is a commercial, local-first environment that adds review-gated swarm orchestration, a safety sandbox with auditing, a markdown knowledge graph with its own MCP server, trigger-based automation, and a live Unity/Unreal engine bridge.
| CAPABILITY | ORCYX | ORCA (ONORCA.DEV) |
|---|---|---|
| License & price | Commercial - plans on the pricing page | Free, open source (MIT) |
| Platforms | Windows installer, unsigned until code signing lands; macOS and Linux coming soon (pre-1.0) | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Parallel CLI agents | ✓ - one PTY per pane in a recursive split grid | ✓ - agents in parallel across isolated git worktrees |
| Orchestration model | Coordinator–router–builder swarm: a director splits missions into cards and dispatches coder, researcher, and auditor seats | CLI orchestration layer - runs, a task DAG, decision gates and federated remote workers. You still merge: no budget caps and no review gate. |
| Merge governance | Auditor review gate - every finished card scanned for secrets and unsafe code and reviewed by an auditor seat; the merge decision is yours | In-app diff review, with line comments routed back to the authoring agent, agent-vs-human line attribution, and stacked PRs. The merge decision is yours. |
| Safety sandbox & audit | ✓ - file-system sandbox, prompt-injection screening, env allowlist, per-seat limits, redacted audit log | None. Permission-bypass flags are pre-filled by default (“Yolo” mode); the audit trail is git history and pull requests. |
| Knowledge graph + MCP | ✓ - markdown Vault with a built-in MCP server (per-tool access control) | Consumes MCP servers; exposes none. No knowledge graph - CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md are shown as ordinary files. |
| Automation triggers | ✓ - cron scheduler, file-system watchers, lifecycle hooks, record-and-replay macros | Scheduled automations (cron/RRULE, cross-host, run dashboard). No file-watch triggers and no record-and-replay macros. |
| Game-engine bridge | ✓ - agents drive live Unity & Unreal editors with staged apply/rollback | - |
| Embedded browser | ✓ - with an inspect-chat dock agents can script | ✓ |
| Voice | ✓ - Voice dictation into any pane, PII-redacted before send | Dictation on desktop and mobile. No hands-free agent, no TTS. |
| Provider keys | Bring your own - no Orcyx markup on your keys | Bring your own |
Orca (onorca.dev) is a free, open-source Agent Development Environment by Stably, Inc., licensed under MIT. Orca runs Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Cursor CLI, and other CLI coding agents in parallel, giving each agent its own isolated git worktree so parallel work never conflicts. It ships a Ghostty-inspired terminal with infinite splits, in-app diff review, an embedded browser, and remote SSH development, and it is cross-platform on macOS, Windows, and Linux. If a free worktree manager for parallel CLI agents is the whole job, Orca does it well.
Orcyx is a local-first agentic development environment for senior engineers, shipped as one desktop binary. Orcyx combines multi-pane terminals, a terminal-linked IDE, an embedded browser, and a markdown knowledge graph with its own MCP server - then layers systems on top: Swarm (coordinator–router–builder agent teams with an auditor review gate and per-pane cost tracking), Automation (cron, file-watch triggers, lifecycle hooks, macros), the Engine Bridge (agents driving live Unity and Unreal editors), and a Platform layer with a safety sandbox, redacted audit logging, and dev containers.
Orca is the better fit when you want a free, open-source tool, when you need a native Linux build today, or when your workflow is exactly "several CLI agents, each in its own worktree, reviewed by hand." There is no license to buy and the MIT source is on GitHub - that simplicity is a genuine strength, and we'd rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Orcyx is the better fit when agents need governance, not just isolation. An Orcyx swarm dispatches work to agent seats and sends every finished card through an auditor review gate - an auditor seat reviews the work, and the changed files are scanned for secrets, unsafe code and CSP problems before they reach you. Every agent runs inside a safety sandbox with prompt-injection screening and a redacted audit trail. Agent context persists in a local markdown knowledge graph any MCP client can read. And if you build games, Orcyx agents operate live Unity and Unreal editors with staged apply and rollback - a capability Orca does not offer.
Yes. Orcyx is a direct Orca alternative in the agent-development-environment category: both run CLI coding agents in parallel on your desktop. Orcyx differs by adding review-gated swarm orchestration, a safety sandbox with audit logging, a local knowledge graph with an MCP server, trigger-based automation, and a Unity/Unreal engine bridge.
Governance. Orca isolates parallel agents in git worktrees and leaves review to you; Orcyx routes agent work through a coordinator–router–builder topology in which an auditor seat reviews finished work and every changeset is scanned for secrets and unsafe code, and it runs each agent inside a sandbox with a redacted audit trail.
Orca is free and open source under the MIT license. Orcyx is a commercial product - current plans are on the Orcyx pricing page - and your own provider keys carry no Orcyx markup.
Yes. Both Orcyx and Orca run Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, and other CLI agents with your own provider keys. Orcyx additionally lets one swarm mix providers per seat - Anthropic on the auditor, OpenAI on a coder - with per-pane cost counters.
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