# Aider vs Orca

> Orca scores 57.4 (C) to Aider's 49.1 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-orca
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-orca.md (~5,050 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Aider's 49.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Aider leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Aider: grade D, 49.1/100, rank #1105 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aider.json
- Orca: grade C, 57.4/100, rank #795 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orca.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/orca.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 1500 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Aider (D)

Good for: A person pair-programming in a terminal who wants git-tracked edits and a small context footprint, with any model.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 59 against 43
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No release since 0.86.2 in February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026

### Orca (C)

Good for: Developers who want an orchestrator agent to split work across parallel coding agents, on desktop or mobile.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 58 against 44
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 56
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 65
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 13

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Aider loses 4 points for them

Watch for: Anonymous usage data collected by default, with an opt-out


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Orca +62

- Aider (13): 0.86.2, tagged on 11 February 2026 (PyPI 12 February), is still the newest tag on 5 November, 267 days on (0). No release in the 90 days from 7 August (0). No commit on main since 2026-05-22 (5dc9490). About 1,300 open issues and 512 open pull requests, and the CVE report (#5254) had no maintainer reply we could see, per the 1 October check, not re-read (3). The PyPI package lags main, which declares Python 3.13 and 3.14 support that the release doesn't allow (5). CI ran on the last commits and dependencies are pinned, as of May (5). 0 + 0 + 3 + 5 + 5 = 13.
- Orca (75): Tags to v1.4.251 and commits on 6 November 2026 (30). Many releases in 90 days (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current builds (15). Extensive CI (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.

### Payments & pricing: Aider +20

- Aider (60): No payment protocol (0). Free and Apache-2.0 with nothing to buy, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines. Any model through LiteLLM, local ones included, with no signup.
- Orca (40): Scored on the cloud option. No protocol (0). The cloud price wasn't found on the pages read (0). The desktop app is free and MIT with no card (20). The local app needs no sign-up that we found (20). 0 + 0 + 20 + 20 = 40.

### Security & auth: Aider +16

- Aider (59): Harness reading of the framework checklist, used for all five harnesses in this batch. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Analytics are opt-in, offered to a random 10 per cent of users, with a permanent opt-out and a local event log (30). Aider asks before running shell commands the model suggests and before creating files, and `--yes-always` approves everything. Edits apply without asking but each lands in a git commit. A `.aider.conf.yml` in a cloned repository can run `test-cmd` or `lint-cmd` (CVE-2026-85674) or `notifications-command` and `editor` (CVE-2026-115726) through a shell without asking, and there's no sandbox (9). URLs in a message trigger an offer to scrape them into the chat, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (3). Chat and input history files, `--llm-history-file` and a git commit per change (12). No SECURITY.md in the repository and no advisories published by the project. The open CVE report had a reply only from a contributor on 1 October (5). 30 + 9 + 3 + 12 + 5 = 59.
- Orca (43): Harness reading. Anonymous usage data with an opt-out, per the README's link to its telemetry docs (15 of 30). Worktrees per agent and a sandboxed Linux build (12 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). A dependency-security workflow (6 of 20). 15 + 12 + 5 + 5 + 6 = 43.

### Reliability: Orca +14

- Aider (44): Read as a local package. aider-chat on PyPI, but the latest release (0.86.2, tagged 11 February 2026) requires Python below 3.13, while main declares 3.10 to 3.14 (18). The Ubuntu test workflow runs pytest on Python 3.10 to 3.14 on every push to main, and a Windows workflow sits beside it. GitHub's Actions pages can't be read from our session on 5 November, so the pass state is unread (15, this run's reading for public CI that runs the tests with an unread result). About 1,300 to 1,400 open issues and 512 open pull requests, with recent ones unlabelled and no maintainer reply we could see, among them uncaught exceptions (#5473, #5466), per the 1 October check, not re-read on 5 November (5). HISTORY.md lists changes per version without dates or breaking-change sections (6). 0.86, pre-1.0, and classed 4 - Beta (0). 18 + 15 + 5 + 6 + 0 = 44.
- Orca (58): Local software. Desktop and mobile builds and a Homebrew cask (20). Unit, end-to-end and platform test workflows; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Tags to v1.4.251, no changelog file (8). Version 1.4 (15). 20 + 15 + 0 + 8 + 15 = 58.

### Transparency & trust: Aider +11

- Aider (65): Apache-2.0 (30). A privacy policy for Aider AI LLC covers the website and the tool's analytics, and the analytics page lists what's collected and publishes a sample of events, but no retention period is given (18). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (3). Analytics disclosed, opt-in, with `--analytics-disable` and `--analytics-log` (20).
- Orca (54): MIT (30). Privacy and telemetry docs on the site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.

### Schema & documentation: Orca +9

- Aider (56): No machine-readable contract. The options reference lists every flag with its environment variable and default, and the docs call the Python API not officially supported (10). No llms.txt or Markdown versions of pages found in the site source (0). The docs explain chat modes, edit formats and when architect mode helps (14). Typed config through `.aider.conf.yml` and flags with defaults (10). Many usage examples and troubleshooting pages (12). A release history per version without dates (10).
- Orca (65): Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Aider | Orca | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 44 | 58 | Orca +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 65 | Orca +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 70 | Orca +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 59 | 43 | Aider +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | Aider +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 13 | 75 | Orca +62 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 54 | Aider +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.1 · D** | **57.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Aider | Orca |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Aider AI LLC | Lovecast Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-02-12 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Popularity | 49k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Aider

- +2.0 on 5 November 2026: new evidence, correction
- -0.2 on 28 October 2026: new evidence
- +0.4 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Orca

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Aider.** Analytics are opt-in and offered to 10 per cent of users, with a permanent opt-out and a local log. No release since 0.86.2 in February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026, and two unfixed CVEs let a cloned repository's `.aider.conf.yml` run shell commands without a prompt.

**Orca.** An open-source orchestrator for coding agents with worker agents in their own worktrees, chat and terminal views, a browser and a CLI, on desktop and mobile, with heavy test automation. It collects anonymous usage data by default, and the cloud option's pricing wasn't found.

## Before you call either

### Aider

1. Read `.aider.conf.yml` in any cloned repository before starting aider. Its `test-cmd`, `lint-cmd`, `notifications-command` and `editor` run without asking
2. Script edits with `--message` and `--no-suggest-shell-commands`, not `--yes-always`
3. Use Python 3.12 or earlier for the PyPI release
4. Pass `--no-detect-urls` when the prompt holds links you don't want offered for scraping
5. Check `git log` after a run. Each edit is its own commit

### Orca

1. See the telemetry docs on onorca.dev to opt out of anonymous usage data
2. Use the orchestration CLI to hand a large task to one agent that starts workers

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Aider or Orca?

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Aider's 49.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Aider leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Are Aider and Orca open source?

Yes. Aider is open source (Apache-2.0). Orca is open source (MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-orca.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-orca.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "aider", "b": "orca"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare aider orca`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aider.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/orca.json

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---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp