Head to head · Multi-agent orchestration · October 2026 research run

CLI Manager vs Orca

CLI Manager scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Orca's 57.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Orca leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

CLI Manager B

Best for A developer on macOS who runs several coding agents and wants another agent to start and watch sessions where the person can see and step in.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 68 against 58
  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 65
  • Security & auth, 58 against 43
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Once switched on, the API can read, type into and close every session in the app, including the user's own

Orca C

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

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 65
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 62

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

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.

Schema & documentation CLI Manager +22

CLI Manager 87

The MCP server lists 27 tools (12 on 14 October; checklist, inbox, session-folder and relation tools were added between v1.18.0 and v1.24.0), each with a typed JSON Schema input and required fields marked. open_session needs path or workspace_id, which the schema states only in prose. No OpenAPI for the REST side (22). llms.txt at climanager.solhun.com (10). Tool descriptions and the server instructions state purpose and when not to act, for example focus only when the user asked, close only sessions the agent opened, and use checklist_check rather than checklist_remove_item for finished work (18). Enums on scope, mode, status and kind. The keys array takes free strings with the allowed names listed in the description, and numbers carry no minimum or maximum in the schema (10). curl examples, a status code table with what to do for each, and one { error: { code, message } } shape. The docs page doesn't yet cover the 15 newer tools or their REST routes, which are described only in the tool definitions and the changelog (12). REST lives under /v1, with release notes and a site changelog (15).

Orca 65

Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).

Payments & pricing CLI Manager +20

CLI Manager 60

No payment protocol (0). Read with the self-hosted rule. Free under MIT with nothing to buy since v1.5.0 (20). No card or account (20). Download and enable the API with no signup (20). The paid Pro licence of versions 1.0 to 1.4 was removed on 8 April 2026, so there is no paid option to score.

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 CLI Manager +15

CLI Manager 58

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 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. No telemetry or analytics found in the source. Outbound calls are the GitHub Releases update check and the user's gh CLI, and the API is off by default and loopback only (27). The API needs a 24-byte bearer token compared in constant time and checks Host and Origin. Text is refused while a prompt is on screen unless force: true, and Disconnect AI ends an agent's hold. Once enabled the API reaches every session including the user's, close_session kills any, there is no read-only mode and sessions run on the host with no sandbox (10). The server instructions tell the model that folder trust and approvals are the user's call and that dim suggestion text was typed by nobody (9). Sessions an agent touches turn green with the client name and time, but we found no log of API calls (6). No SECURITY.md, security.txt or bug bounty. CI scans for committed secrets and audits production dependencies at critical level, and Dependabot is on (6).

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.

Maintenance & community Orca +13

CLI Manager 62

v1.24.0 on 1 November 2026 (30). 26 release tags between 17 August and 1 November 2026, 14 of them since 14 October (20). Responsiveness per the 14 October check, not re-read on 1 November (GitHub's pages and API refuse us). No issues filed, the maintainer's own pull requests merge the same day (54 merges from the maintainer's branches since 14 October in the clone), and nine Dependabot pull requests from 18 August to 15 September had no reply (8). Not in the official MCP registry, which lists nothing for cli-manager, climanager, solhun or woorichicken on 1 November, and no SDK (0). Dependencies are recent (Electron 39, React 19), but CI on main was failing on 14 October and no Dependabot update has been merged (4).

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.

Reliability CLI Manager +10

CLI Manager 68

Read as local software. Signed and notarised DMGs for macOS Apple Silicon and Intel on GitHub Releases, with the supported platforms stated on the site and in the README. No package registry (20). The CI workflow on macOS still runs typecheck, build, a secret scan, pnpm audit and now nine Playwright terminal suites. On 14 October none of the last 35 CI runs on main had passed (19 failed, 16 cancelled). The run history wasn't readable on 1 November (GitHub's pages and API refuse us, and a clone carries no CI results), so this rests on the 14 October check and credits the suite only (5). No issue count could be read on 1 November. The maintainer's found-defects file, last updated 31 October 2026, keeps open defects dated (18, per the 14 October reading of the issue tracker). Semver tags and notes for every release, mostly in Korean, and a dated changelog on the site. Breaking changes are not marked as such (10). Version 1.24.0, past 1.0 since 4 December 2025 (15).

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

CLI Manager 65

27 compact tools, in the 11 to 30 band (15). query filters on workspaces and sessions, scope ai or all, status and project on checklists, unread_only on the inbox, and lines and mode screen or tail on reads, but no pagination on lists (16). Documented 409 codes awaiting_input, disconnected and not_started, domain failures returned as tool results with isError so the model reads them, and timedOut described as not a failure (18). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations, and open_session repeated opens a second session. Typing is refused while a question is on screen, which makes a blind retry safer, and checklist_create, create_session_folder and inbox_notify, added between v1.18.0 and v1.24.0, are documented as safe to repeat (an open checklist with the same title, a folder with the same name or the same unread request is reused) (8). Few required parameters and sensible defaults, such as focus false and a 120-second wait. No SDK, only the climanager-session agent skill with a Node script (8).

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).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCLI ManagerOrcaEdge
Reliability16%206858CLI Manager +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28765CLI Manager +22
Agent ergonomics13%16.26570Orca +5
Security & auth14%17.55843CLI Manager +15
Payments & pricing10%12.56040CLI Manager +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86275Orca +13
Transparency & trust7%8.85854CLI Manager +4
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 66.4/100C 57.4/100

Facts side by side

FactCLI ManagerOrca
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
Vendorsolhun (Jeong Kyeonghun)Lovecast Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsStreamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Tools exposed27none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-11-012026-11-06
Terms last updated2026-09-14no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-14no 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
Popularity15 starsnone
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

CLI Manager

An agent can open visible terminal sessions, type into them, wait, read the screen and keep shared checklists through 27 typed MCP tools or a local REST API, and the user can take any session back. Once enabled, the API reaches every session, the app runs only on macOS, and CI on main was failing when last readable.

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

CLI Manager

  1. Ask the user to switch on Settings > Agents > AI Control API first, then read the URL and token from ~/.climanager/control-api.json
  2. On 409 awaiting_input, read the screen and answer with keys such as ["down","enter"]. Leave folder-trust and permission choices to the user
  3. Stop using a session on 409 disconnected. The user took it back
  4. Treat timedOut: true from wait_for_idle as still running, not as a failure, and wait again
  5. Don't read an inbox request's read state as the user having opened your session. Since v1.22.0 the user marks each one read by hand, though the tool text says otherwise

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, CLI Manager or Orca?

CLI Manager scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Orca's 57.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Orca leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

Are CLI Manager and Orca open source?

Yes. CLI Manager is open source (MIT). Orca is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with CLI Manager or Orca

Machine-readable

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