Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Auggie CLI vs Orca

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Auggie CLI's 49.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Auggie CLI leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Auggie CLI D

Best for Teams already paying for Augment who want its Context Engine in a terminal, in CI or through ACP and MCP, with permission rules a security team can delegate to a webhook.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 59 against 54

Watch for

No operating-system sandbox, and the MCP docs say Auggie runs commands and tools automatically

Orca C

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

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 58 against 43
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 65
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 38

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

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

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community Orca +37

Auggie CLI 38

Graded on the stable line, as the brief asks. 0.36.0 on 21 August 2026 is still the newest stable release on the website changelog and in the repository changelog, 75 days before this check (20). In the 90 days from 6 August 2026 the stable line has two dated releases, 0.35.0 on 13 August and 0.36.0 on 21 August. The 1.2.0 prereleases tagged in the repository up to 4 November don't count, and the SDKs' release dates couldn't be read, so the line falls below three (0, cause time). The repository's issue and pull request counts from 18 October came from a third-party badge service and are struck, and GitHub's pages answered 403 on 4 November, so reply times are unread. A support portal, a subreddit and a dated website changelog. Earlier partial value kept and flagged (6). TypeScript SDK 0.2.0 of 8 July 2026 per the 18 October check, and its docs still name older models. The Python SDK's version couldn't be read (8). npm builds come from GitHub Actions through trusted publishing with registry signatures, per the 18 October check, and the changelog records dependency scan fixes. No public CI for the CLI (4). 20+0+6+8+4 = 38.

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 Orca +20

Auggie CLI 20

Harness reading of the published rubric, scored on the Augment subscription the CLI needs. The self-hosted rule doesn't apply. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices, per-model token rates and the 40 per cent service fee are public without a login (20). No free tier was found on the pricing page. The terms mention trials by order (0). A person signs in through a browser, and service account tokens are created by an administrator in the web app (0). 0+20+0+0 = 20.

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.

Reliability Orca +15

Auggie CLI 43

Local-package reading, as for the other closed-source harnesses. The official npm package with macOS, Linux and WSL stated, but the README asks for Node 22 or later while the docs and the package engines say Node 20, so 2 are held back (18). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published. The repository holds docs, examples and issues, not the CLI (0). Open crash or regression issues couldn't be counted. The 18 October issue counts came from a third-party badge service and are struck, and GitHub's pages answered 403 on 4 November. Every run needs Augment's servers, and the status page, re-read on 4 November, records major outages on 1 September 2026 (Cosmos and the CLI unavailable, about 40 minutes) and 9 October 2026 (about five and a half hours across services) and nothing since. The earlier partial value is kept and flagged (5). A changelog by version with fixes and improvements in sections, dated release notes on the website, and a 1.x guide with a breaking-changes section, though the repository changelog carries no dates (10). The guide, re-read on 4 November, still calls the latest 0.x channel the current stable line for production, while 1.x is in preview. Judgement call (10). 18+0+5+10+10 = 43.

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.

Agent ergonomics Orca +5

Auggie CLI 65

Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. --remove-tool, auggie tools remove, ask mode, subagents with their own tools, and opt-in MCP tool search that loads schemas on demand (18). --max-turns, --quiet, --compact, --output-format json, --queue and --show-credits. Budgets per user exist only on Enterprise (15). No documented exit codes or error format for print mode. Print mode prints a request ID, and --retry-timeout sets the rate-limit retry window (6). --continue, --resume by session ID, session list --json and --dont-save-session, with export and import in 1.x (15). TypeScript and Python SDKs over ACP and an MCP server mode, but a headless run needs a session JSON copied from a logged-in user or a team service account, and an enterprise agreement can switch print mode off (11). 18+15+6+15+11 = 65.

Orca 70

Harness reading. An orchestrator agent that splits work across workers in their own workspaces, chat or raw CLI, a browser and a CLI in one app (70).

Transparency & trust Auggie CLI +5

Auggie CLI 59

Proprietary. The licence is clear on subscription, redistribution and modification, but it says commercial use needs a separate agreement while plans are sold to businesses, and it names Augment Computing, Inc., which sold the CLI to Harness on 8 October. On 4 November the licence, terms and privacy policy still named Augment Computing, Inc., while the website footer read Harness, Inc. (12). The paid terms rule out training on customer code and treat it as confidential. The privacy policy (28 August 2025) gives no retention periods and lists no subprocessors, referring both to a request, and the docs say indexed code is stored by Augment without a retention period (12). The 1.x guide lists breaking changes and retired parts, and the terms promise no materially reduced functionality during an order, but no date for 1.x becoming the default and no notice period were found (8). A telemetry endpoint is disclosed on the network page, with no description of what's sent and no opt-out (3). 12+12+8+3 = 35.

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.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAuggie CLIOrcaEdge
Reliability16%204358Orca +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26765Auggie CLI +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.26570Orca +5
Security & auth14%17.54743Auggie CLI +4
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Orca +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83875Orca +37
Transparency & trust7%8.85954Auggie CLI +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 49.3/100C 57.4/100

Facts side by side

FactAuggie CLIOrca
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorHarness (formerly Augment Code)Lovecast Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary. The licence from Augment Computing, Inc. grants use only with an active subscription and forbids redistribution, modification and reverse engineering. The GitHub repository holds the README, changelog, examples and issue tracker, not the sourceMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-08-212026-11-06
Terms last updated2025-08-28no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2025-08-28no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot read yet
Popularity16k npm/wknone
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Auggie CLI

Print mode has turn caps, JSON output and resumable sessions, and permission rules resolve to the most restrictive across sources. Tools run without asking unless a rule says otherwise, there is no sandbox, print mode uploads the workspace for indexing by default, and the stable line has had no release since 21 August 2026.

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

Auggie CLI

  1. Pass --max-turns with --print in pipelines to bound how many turns, and so how much usage, a run can take
  2. Commit deny rules to .augment/settings.json before an unattended run. Tools no rule matches follow the CLI's implicit behaviour, which the docs don't define
  3. Add secrets and data directories to .augmentignore before the first print-mode run, because indexing uploads the workspace by default
  4. Use a service account token in CI on team and Enterprise plans. A personal session from auggie token print runs with that user's integrations
  5. Pin the version in CI. latest is 0.x, while preview and daemon carry 1.x prereleases whose permission rules ignore some legacy tool names

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, Auggie CLI or Orca?

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Auggie CLI's 49.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Auggie CLI leads on transparency & trust.

Are Auggie CLI and Orca open source?

No open-source release is listed for Auggie CLI. Orca is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Auggie CLI or Orca

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