Head to head · Assistants reached by message · October 2026 research run
Orbits vs Orchid
Orchid scores 20.2 (F) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (F), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Orbits leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do assistants reached by message.
Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 834 assistants comparisons
Which one, for what
Orbits F
Best for Families who want one shared assistant for calendars, lists, meals, chores and household email.
Ahead on
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 54 against 24
Watch for
No public agent API, as llms.txt states.
Orchid F
Best for A founder or operator who wants Gmail and calendar triage by text with approval before anything leaves.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 50 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 60 against 43
Watch for
No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Orbits | Orchid | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 15 | 50 | Orchid +35 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 10 | 10 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 0 | 0 | even |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 0 | 0 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 10 | Orbits +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 54 | 24 | Orbits +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 43 | 60 | Orchid +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | F 15.6/100 | F 20.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Orbits | Orchid |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Platform | Platform |
| Vendor | Nemus AI, Inc. | Zero Email, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed service under the Orbits Terms of Service (Nemus AI, Inc.). | Closed service under Orchid's Terms of Service (Zero Email, Inc., last updated 16 January 2026). |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | none |
| Terms last updated | ||
| Privacy policy last updated | ||
| Customer content may train models | ||
| Terms restrict automated access | ||
| Terms restrict benchmarking | ||
| Terms or service can change without notice | ||
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |
Verdicts
Orbits
Orbits is a family household app whose assistant, Bit, runs shared calendars, lists and meals, reads household email and places restaurant calls after approval, with iOS releases every week or two. No outside agent can call it, prices appear only as App Store in-app purchases, and no status page, security contact or named subprocessors were found.
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
Orbits
- Don't plan to call Orbits from another agent. llms.txt says no public agent API is offered.
- Tell the owner the assistant needs an Orbits subscription bought in the app, and that any trial appears only at purchase.
Orchid
- Don't plan to call Orchid from another agent. It answers only the owner's iMessage, SMS and Telegram threads.
- Check status.orchid.ai before telling the owner Orchid is down. The 7 August incident moved it to a new number.
- Tell the owner that drafts and holds wait for their approval unless they widen it.
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Orbits or Orchid?
Orchid scores 20.2 (F) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (F), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Orbits leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.
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Disclosure
Orbits 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.
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.
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/orbits-vs-orchid-ai.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/orbits.json·/api/v1/tools/orchid-ai.json - From a terminal
anchor compare orbits orchid-ai(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "orbits", "b": "orchid-ai"}at/mcp, no key