# DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Orca

> Orca scores 57.4 (C) to DeepSeek Harness's 48.5 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-orca
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-orca.md (~5,300 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 DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 48.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- DeepSeek Harness (dsh): grade D, 48.5/100, rank #1111 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepseek-harness.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepseek-harness.json
- Orca: grade C, 57.4/100, rank #791 of 1486. 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

### DeepSeek Harness (dsh) (D)

Good for: Developers who use DeepSeek models and want a scriptable harness with ACP, a JSON event stream and a Python SDK.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

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

Watch for: By default each request to DeepSeek's official API carries the session log, including message text, tool arguments and results, up to 8 MiB a request

### 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 38

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- No incidents deducted, where DeepSeek Harness (dsh) loses 8 points for them

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


## Why the edge

### Reliability: Orca +20

- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) (38): Local-package reading, graded on npm `latest`, which the README's `npx @deepseek-ai/dsh` installs (0.2.0-rc.2 per the 18 October check; npm not re-read on 4 November). Official npm package with Node 22.19+ and 24+ stated, and a Python wheel for Python 3.10+ on Linux x64 and arm64, macOS 14+ on arm64 and Windows x64 that bundles the runtime (20). Public CI. ci.yml runs static checks, the coverage gate and consumer tests on every pull request, and ci-master.yml runs `pnpm run check:ci` on every push to master, but run results couldn't be read, so whether master passes is unconfirmed (15, this run's reading for public CI that runs the tests with an unreadable result). CONTRIBUTING.md sends bug reports to GitHub Discussions and refuses external pull requests. Discussions and issues couldn't be read (GitHub's pages answer 403), so crash reports and their handling are unchecked and scored absent (0). Alpha, next and latest dist-tags separate channels. Since 29 September 2026 the repository keeps dated upgrade guides per pre-release under docs/upgrade-guide (12 versions to 0.2.2-alpha.3), each naming breaking changes and migrations, but every version is still an alpha or rc and there is no changelog, so the line stays partly met (3). Developer preview, no 1.0 or stable release (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 3 + 0 = 38.
- 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.

### Payments & pricing: DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +20

- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) (60): Self-hosted rule, as for the other open-source harnesses. No payment protocol (0). The harness is free under MIT with nothing to buy (20). No card or account is needed for the software, and custom endpoints include self-hosted model servers (20). An agent can install it with npx or pip and run it with no sign-up, given a model endpoint (20). DeepSeek's API is a separate purchase. 0 + 20 + 20 + 20 = 60.
- 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.

### Schema & documentation: DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +12

- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) (77): Framework reading. `--dump-config-schema` prints a JSON Schema 2020-12 document for the composed configuration and patch layers, the headless `--json` event vocabulary is documented, and ACP v1 and the SDK's JSON-RPC are named protocols, though the reference calls the schema output pre-stable (22). llms.txt on the docs site, with a raw Markdown address for every page (10). Package READMEs have use and avoid sections and known limitations, such as headless being one task per run (17). Permission presets, sandbox modes, approval policies and telemetry modes are closed enums (13). Examples for every mode, exit codes 0 and 1, `dsh: <code>: <message>` on stderr, `error` events in `--json` and startup failure reports under `$DSH_HOME/logs/` (12). Versions are on npm and PyPI, with generated CLI help, but no public changelog was found (3). Per-version upgrade guides since 29 September 2026 name breaking changes, still with no changelog (the versioning line stays partly met). 22 + 10 + 17 + 13 + 12 + 3 = 77.
- Orca (65): Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Orca | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 38 | 58 | Orca +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 65 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 70 | Orca +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 43 | Orca +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 75 | Orca +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 53 | 54 | Orca +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -8 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **48.5 · D** | **57.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepSeek Harness (dsh) | Orca |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | DeepSeek | Lovecast Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 245k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

- -1.0 on 4 November 2026: security, checklist
- +0.3 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Orca

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**DeepSeek Harness (dsh).** Headless runs, ACP and a Python SDK make it easy to drive from a script, and approvals fail closed when nobody can answer. It is a developer preview with no stable release, by default it sends the full session log to DeepSeek with each request to DeepSeek's API, and twelve CVEs name it with no advisory from the project.

**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

### DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

1. Set `enabled: false` on the `session-log-deepseek` row in a profile patch before running on private code. Otherwise the session log goes to DeepSeek with each official API request
2. Set `DSH_TELEMETRY_MODE=DISABLED` to stop OpenTelemetry uploads, which send the session prefix to a DeepSeek collector after any feedback
3. Treat exit code 1 and the `turn_end` reason as failure. A `--json` stream can end with a `final` event for a failed run
4. Run in a disposable container or VM. The sandbox doesn't confine reads or network, and SAFETY.md says the project has had no security audit
5. Pin the version. npm `latest` and `next` differ, the README warns of breaking changes, and 0.2.2 pre-releases let `web_fetch` reach private hosts

### 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, DeepSeek Harness (dsh) or Orca?

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Harness (dsh)'s 48.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing.

### Are DeepSeek Harness (dsh) and Orca open source?

Yes. DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is open source (MIT). Orca is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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