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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Conductor vs Orca

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Conductor's 41.3 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

ConductorConductor (joining Meta) · Agent harness E41.3/100#1285 of 1486 OrcaLovecast Inc. · Agent harness C57.4/100#791 of 1486

Which one, for what

Conductor E

Best for Existing Conductor users planning their move before Cloud closes on 20 November 2026 and the local app winds down in early 2027.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No new downloads or sign-ups since 4 November 2026

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 25
  • Schema & documentation, 65 against 60
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 55
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 0
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 58

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.

Payments & pricing Orca +40

Conductor 0

No new sign-ups since 4 November, free users can't upgrade, and no price is shown. No protocol, no published price, no open free tier, no onboarding (0).

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 +33

Conductor 25

Read as local software that is winding down. Installed from Conductor's own download, which stopped taking new users on 4 November 2026 (10). Closed source, so no public CI or issue tracker (0, 0). A dated changelog, newest 0.93.0 on 4 November (15). Version 0.93 (0). 10 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 25.

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.

Maintenance & community Orca +17

Conductor 58

0.93.0 on 4 November 2026 (30). Several dated releases in 90 days, per the changelog index (20). Discord, a subreddit and email for support (8). Closed app, no package or CI to read (0). 30 + 20 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 58. The local app gets new models and critical fixes only until early 2027.

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.

Agent ergonomics Orca +15

Conductor 55

Harness reading. Each task gets a workspace, branch, terminal and diff, with pull requests and merges from the app, and an API for integrations; not re-read in detail (55).

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).

Schema & documentation Orca +5

Conductor 60

Harness reading. Docs for workspaces, review and merge, a Conductor API reference page linked from the docs (not read), and security and permissions pages (60).

Orca 65

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runConductorOrcaEdge
Reliability16%202558Orca +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26065Orca +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.25570Orca +15
Security & auth14%17.54543Conductor +2
Payments & pricing10%12.5040Orca +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85875Orca +17
Transparency & trust7%8.85354Orca +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalE 41.3/100C 57.4/100

Facts side by side

FactConductorOrca
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorConductor (joining Meta)Lovecast Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary. A closed-source Mac app and hosted Conductor Cloud under Conductor's termsMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-042026-11-06
Terms last updatednot read yetno document linked
Privacy policy last updatednot read yetno document linked

Verdicts

Conductor

Conductor ran parallel coding agents on the Mac, and Meta is acquiring it. It has taken no new users since 4 November 2026, Cloud turns read-only on 13 November and shuts down on 20 November, and the local app winds down in early 2027, when all user data is deleted.

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

Conductor

  1. Export your data from Settings, Account, Export data before 20 November 2026
  2. Move Cloud workspaces to your Mac with Transfer to local before 13 November
  3. Plan a move off the local app before early 2027; see the agent-harnesses category for alternatives

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, Conductor or Orca?

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Conductor's 41.3 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Conductor and Orca open source?

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

Other comparisons with Conductor or Orca

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