# Orca vs Parallax (slim)

> Orca scores 57.4 (C) to Parallax's 38.1 (E) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-parallax-agents.md (~5,100 tokens) · this version ~1,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-parallax-agents.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-parallax-agents
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Parallax's 38.1 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- Orca: C 57.4, rank #795 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orca.min.md
- Parallax: E 38.1, rank #1365 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/parallax-agents.min.md
- Orca, good for Developers who want an orchestrator agent to split work across parallel coding agents, on desktop or mobile. Ahead on Reliability, 58 against 40; Schema & documentation, 65 against 29; Agent ergonomics, 70 against 42; Payments & pricing, 40 against 30; Maintenance & community, 75 against 56. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.
- Parallax, good for A developer on a Mac who runs several coding agents across Claude and Codex subscriptions and wants cross-lab review of finished sessions on GitHub.

| Category | Orca | Parallax |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 58 | 40 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 29 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 70 | 42 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 43 | 43 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 75 | 56 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 54 | 50 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Orca | Parallax |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Lovecast Inc. | Conifer Solutions, Inc. |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under Conifer's Terms of Service (Conifer Solutions, Inc.). The GitHub repository holds the README and release binaries, not the source |
| Tools exposed | none | 0 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-22 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Schema & documentation, Orca +36: Orca 65 (Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).); Parallax 29 (The review API has no OpenAPI or endpoint reference. Endpoints appear only in curl examples, and the base URL `$PARALLAX_URL` is not published (0). conifer.build/llms.txt covers the gateway in detail and Parallax in two lines that point to the docs (5). The docs explain sessions, sweeps, evidence states, memory and retention at length, but nothing documents the app, Captain, fallback or fast merge (8). parallax.yml keys are listed with allowed values (`deliver: proven-only`, `review: off`, severity floors, sweep modes), but request and response shapes for the API are not (5). curl examples, sample sweep lines and a table of skip reasons with the fix for each (8). Paths sit under `/v1`, with no changelog for Parallax (3).)
- Agent ergonomics, Orca +28: 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).); Parallax 42 (Scored on the review API and the hooks, the only parts an agent touches. The session-start brief is cut at 6,000 characters, memory per review call at 12,000, and `lesson_cap` sets 1 to 20 lessons per person (8). `repo` filters on recall and brief, `brain=true` on the ledger, no documented pagination (4). Skip reasons such as `capture_commit_missing` and `test_configuration_missing` each come with a fix, but HTTP error codes for the API are not documented (12). A session is swept once per capture mark, retries use no extra credit, and a fix PR is reused and never reopened or merged by Parallax (14). No SDK for Parallax, and capture of every repository is the default (4).)
- Maintenance & community, Orca +19: 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.); Parallax 56 (v1.0.2 on 16 October 2026 (30). Three releases, v1.0.0 to v1.0.2, on 15 and 16 October 2026 (20). Closed service. No public changelog. Support through a GitHub issues link, a Discord server and email, none of which we could check for replies (3). No Parallax SDK and nothing in the MCP registry. Conifer's SDK is for the gateway (0). Signed builds with checksums and a self-updater, with no CI to inspect (3).)
- Reliability, Orca +18: 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.); Parallax 40 (Read as local software, because the launched product is the app the owner runs. A signed and notarised universal DMG for macOS 12 or later and Linux tarballs for x86-64 and arm64 on GitHub Releases, with SHA256SUMS and an install script. No package registry (20). The release repository holds a README and binaries only, with no public CI or tests (0). We could not read its issues, because our GitHub access refused the issue pages, so the issue record is unchecked and scored absent (0). Semver tags v1.0.0 to v1.0.2, but no release notes or changelog we could read (5). Version 1.0.2 (15). The hosted review service has no status page and no published rate limits. conifer.build/uptime covers upstream model providers only.)
- Payments & pricing, Orca +10: 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.); Parallax 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Parallax episode credit prices are read from the account after sign-in. Gateway token prices are public at `GET /v1/catalog` with no key, which covers Conifer credit spent by agents (10). $50 of Conifer credit and 5 free episodes on GitHub sign-up, with no card mentioned, and agents can run on the owner's own Claude and Codex subscriptions (20). A person has to download the app, sign in and install the GitHub App, so no autonomous onboarding (0).)