# Big Arrow vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks

> Big Arrow scores 70.7 (BB) to Orkes Conductor Human tasks's 54 (C) for hitl handoff. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-orkes-conductor
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-orkes-conductor.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-orkes-conductor.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-orkes-conductor.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

Big Arrow scores 70.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Orkes Conductor Human tasks's 54 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Orkes Conductor Human tasks leads on maintenance & community. Both do hitl handoff.

- Big Arrow: grade BB, 70.7/100, rank #151 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bigarrow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bigarrow.json
- Orkes Conductor Human tasks: grade C, 54/100, rank #746 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orkes-conductor.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/orkes-conductor.json
- Best human approval and handoff for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/human-in-the-loop/index.md
- All 53 human approval comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/human-in-the-loop/index.md
- Best workflow automation platforms with APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/workflow-automation/index.md
- All 112 workflows comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/workflow-automation/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Big Arrow (BB)

Good for: An agent on a person's Mac that reaches a step only the person may do, such as a permission prompt, 2FA code or payment, and needs to show where.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 32
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 69
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 44

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: First commit 8 October 2026 and version 0.4.6, with flags removed or renamed between minor versions

### Orkes Conductor Human tasks (C)

Good for: Teams that already orchestrate agents as Conductor workflows and need formal routing, per-assignee deadlines and escalation without writing them.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 70

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No built-in Slack or email prompt, so alerts need a trigger policy and a second workflow


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Big Arrow | Orkes Conductor Human tasks | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 32 | Big Arrow +43 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 65 | Big Arrow +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 69 | Big Arrow +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 67 | 71 | Orkes Conductor Human tasks +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | Big Arrow +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 81 | Orkes Conductor Human tasks +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 44 | Big Arrow +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.7 · BB** | **54 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Big Arrow | Orkes Conductor Human tasks |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | Platform |
| Vendor | Franz Enzenhofer | Orkes |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://developer.orkescloud.com/api` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 (Conductor OSS and SDKs), proprietary (Orkes Conductor) |
| Tools exposed | none | 19 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.conductor-oss/conductor-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-12 | 2026-09-10 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2022-02-23 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 747 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Big Arrow.** An agent can show a person which control to click, with a labelled arrow that needs no permission to draw, never takes focus and always removes itself. The tool is a week old at version 0.4.6, runs only on macOS, reports no answer beyond how an arrow ended, and has no security policy.

**Orkes Conductor Human tasks.** Escalation chains with a time limit per assignee and a choice of leaving the task open or failing the workflow. No built-in Slack or email prompt, so alerts need a trigger policy and a second workflow.

## Before you call either

### Big Arrow

1. Open the exact System Settings pane or URL first, then point at the one control left for the person
2. Write the sign as a full sentence that names the action and, for approvals or payments, what the click does
3. Pass `--app` or `--window` for any target inside an app, so it is raised and the arrow hides while covered
4. On exit 4, run `bigarrow doctor` and ask the person to grant Accessibility to the app running your shell, not to bigarrow
5. Call `bigarrow stop` once the step is done, and add `bigarrow stop --hook` as a Claude Code UserPromptSubmit hook

### Orkes Conductor Human tasks

1. Give every assignment you want to escalate from a non-zero `slaMinutes`, since 0 never expires and nothing can follow it
2. Pick `TERMINATE` for risky actions so an unanswered approval fails the workflow instead of staying open to anyone
3. Start approval workflows with an `idempotencyKey` and `RETURN_EXISTING`, so a retried start doesn't ask twice
4. Refresh the JWT from `/api/token` with a set expiry instead of requesting one that never expires
5. Fetch single doc pages, not llms.txt, which is the whole documentation in 2.57 MB

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Big Arrow or Orkes Conductor Human tasks?

Big Arrow scores 70.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Orkes Conductor Human tasks's 54 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Orkes Conductor Human tasks leads on maintenance & community.

### Are Big Arrow and Orkes Conductor Human tasks open source?

Yes. Big Arrow is open source (MIT). Orkes Conductor Human tasks is open source (Apache-2.0 (Conductor OSS and SDKs), proprietary (Orkes Conductor)).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Big Arrow or Orkes Conductor Human tasks

- [gotoHuman vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
- [Hatchet vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
- [Inngest vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Permit MCP Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-permit-mcp-gateway.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Pushary](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-pushary.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-restate.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-temporal.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Big Arrow vs gotoHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-gotohuman.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Hatchet](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-hatchet.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Inngest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-inngest.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Pushary](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-pushary.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-restate.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-temporal.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-trigger-dev.md)