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Head to head · Assistants that remember you · October 2026 research run

DeepTutor vs Orchid

DeepTutor scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against Orchid's 20.2 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orchid leads on transparency & trust. Both do assistants that remember you.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 1196 assistants comparisons

DeepTutorHKUDS · Agent harness B62.7/100#494 of 1238 OrchidZero Email, Inc. · Platform F20.2/100#1187 of 1238

Which one, for what

DeepTutor B

Best for A learner, a teacher or a small group that wants a self-hosted tutor over their own documents, with quizzes, research reports, memory and IM companions, or for an agent that hands study tasks to it through the JSON CLI.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 50
  • Schema & documentation, 71 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 63 against 0
  • Security & auth, 51 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 24

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The default launch binds the backend to 0.0.0.0 with sign-in off and CORS open to any origin with credentials

Orchid F

Best for A founder or operator who wants Gmail and calendar triage by text with approval before anything leaves.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 52

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where DeepTutor loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDeepTutorOrchidEdge
Reliability16%207850DeepTutor +28
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27110DeepTutor +61
Agent ergonomics13%16.2630DeepTutor +63
Security & auth14%17.5510DeepTutor +51
Payments & pricing10%12.56010DeepTutor +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88424DeepTutor +60
Transparency & trust7%8.85260Orchid +8
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 62.7/100F 20.2/100

Facts side by side

FactDeepTutorOrchid
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorHKUDSZero Email, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Closed service under Orchid's Terms of Service (Zero Email, Inc., last updated 16 January 2026).
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-28none
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-01-16
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-09-14
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity51k starsnone
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (4)

Verdicts

DeepTutor

DeepTutor runs on the owner's machine under Apache 2.0, ships releases every few days with upgrade notes, and gives other agents a JSON CLI with resumable sessions. Its default launch binds all interfaces with sign-in off and permissive CORS, there is no security policy, and two CVEs in 2026 covered a shell-tool RCE and a multi-user MCP bypass, both fixed.

Orchid

Orchid is a paid executive assistant over iMessage, SMS and Telegram that holds drafts and calendar holds until the owner approves, with a public status page and a named subprocessor list. No outside agent can call it, there's no free tier, and its privacy policy allows training a personal model while its blog says it never trains.

Before you call either

DeepTutor

  1. Run deeptutor run <capability> "..." --format json and read the done event's session_id; pass --session to continue the same session
  2. Configure with deeptutor config apply setup.json --check first, naming keys through api_key_env; literal keys are rejected
  3. Before exposing it beyond one machine, enable sign-in in auth.json, set exact cors_origins and set BACKEND_HOST=127.0.0.1 where loopback is wanted
  4. Run 1.4.10 or later. Earlier versions carry CVE-2026-51870 (shell tool RCE, fixed in 1.4.1) and CVE-2026-58168 (multi-user MCP bypass)
  5. Set sandbox_allow_subprocess to false where generated code must run only in the runner sidecar or bubblewrap

Orchid

  1. Don't plan to call Orchid from another agent. It answers only the owner's iMessage, SMS and Telegram threads.
  2. Check status.orchid.ai before telling the owner Orchid is down. The 7 August incident moved it to a new number.
  3. Tell the owner that drafts and holds wait for their approval unless they widen it.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DeepTutor or Orchid?

DeepTutor scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against Orchid's 20.2 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orchid leads on transparency & trust.

Are DeepTutor and Orchid open source?

DeepTutor is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Orchid.

Other comparisons with DeepTutor or Orchid

Disclosure

Orchid competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.

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