# Orca vs Prime Agent

> Orca and Prime Agent score within a point of each other for agent harnesses, 57.4 and 56.8 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-prime-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-prime-agent.md (~5,250 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 and Prime Agent score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.4 (C) and 56.8 (C). Prime Agent leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Orca: grade C, 57.4/100, rank #795 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orca.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/orca.json
- Prime Agent: grade C, 56.8/100, rank #820 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.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

### Orca (C)

Good for: Developers who want an orchestrator agent to split work across parallel coding agents, on desktop or mobile.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 45

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Prime Agent loses 3 points for them

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

### Prime Agent (C)

Good for: Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 50 against 43
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 67 against 54

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

Watch for: No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox


## Why the edge

### Schema & documentation: Orca +20

- Orca (65): Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).
- Prime Agent (45): Harness reading of the framework line. `--mode json` emits a session event stream and `rpc` and `acp` modes exist, but we found no published schema or reference for them outside the source (10). docs.primeintellect.ai serves an llms.txt that still had no Prime Agent page on 3 November 2026 (0). The README states what the agent does, how it differs and that it is not a sandbox, and the bundled skills say when to use each function (10). CLI values are validated with messages that list the valid choices, and MCP tool schemas are read live from the server (7). The README gives the install line and the main commands, the repository's docs folder adds Slack and Google Workspace MCP connector guides, and the MCP skill documents its error types, but there is no headless or configuration guide (5). Versioned stable releases and, since 0.10.1 on 21 October 2026, a dated CHANGELOG.md in the repository. 0.10.0 has no entry and the nightly betas have none of substance (13). 10 + 0 + 10 + 7 + 5 + 13 = 45.

### Payments & pricing: Prime Agent +20

- 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.
- Prime Agent (60): Self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0). Free and MIT-licensed with nothing to buy, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines. The model provider is paid separately.

### Transparency & trust: Prime Agent +13

- Orca (54): MIT (30). Privacy and telemetry docs on the site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.
- Prime Agent (67): MIT in the LICENSE file and Cargo.toml, with a notice that the code is a port of a TypeScript product originally copyright Mario Zechner (30). The first-run notice and the telemetry crate README say what is sent and what is excluded, and name the endpoint and PostHog, but the vendor privacy policy, re-read on 3 November 2026, is still dated 23 February 2024, does not describe agent telemetry and gives no retention period for it (12). No deprecation policy found. Removed flags are recorded in change fragments and, since 0.10.1, in CHANGELOG.md (5). Telemetry is disclosed with a setting, a command and two environment variables to turn it off (20). 30 + 12 + 5 + 20 = 67.

### Security & auth: Prime Agent +7

- Orca (43): Harness reading. Anonymous usage data with an opt-out, per the README's link to its telemetry docs (15 of 30). Worktrees per agent and a sandboxed Linux build (12 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). A dependency-security workflow (6 of 20). 15 + 12 + 5 + 5 + 6 = 43.
- Prime Agent (50): Harness reading of the framework checklist, as used for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Usage telemetry is on by default. It is pseudonymous, limited to primitive values with no prompts, tool content or file paths per the source, disclosed on first run and mirrored to a local `telemetry.jsonl` (18). No approval prompts were found and there is no sandbox, which the README states. MCP tools can be limited with `enabledTools` and `disabledTools`, and the agent is told to recommend a connection, not make one (4). The README tells users to work only with trusted repositories, instructions and skills. No detection or mitigation found (5). Append-only JSONL session files, a `prime-agent incident` timeline command and the local telemetry mirror (12). The vendor's security policy has a reporting address, safe harbour, response times and discretionary rewards, scoped to its website and API. The repository has no SECURITY.md and no published advisories, CONTRIBUTING.md says to report privately without naming an address, and security.txt returned 404. security.txt still returned 404 on 3 November 2026 and the policy page (updated 6 May 2026) is unchanged. Fixes to the agent's own flaws ship in releases with no advisory (see negative). cargo-deny runs in CI (11). 18 + 4 + 5 + 12 + 11 = 50.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Orca | Prime Agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 58 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 45 | Orca +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 73 | Prime Agent +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 50 | Prime Agent +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Prime Agent +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 79 | Prime Agent +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 67 | Prime Agent +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **57.4 · C** | **56.8 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Orca | Prime Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Lovecast Inc. | Prime Intellect |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| 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 | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 22k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### Orca

No score change since it was listed.

### Prime Agent

- -3.9 on 3 November 2026: product, correction, negative event
- +0.2 on 28 October 2026: new evidence
- no change on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**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.

**Prime Agent.** Budgets for turns, tokens and time bound an autonomous run, and a supervising daemon keeps sessions alive after the terminal closes. Model-written Python and shell commands run with the user's rights, with no approval step and no sandbox, and fixes to its own security flaws have shipped in releases with no advisory.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Prime Agent

1. Run it in a disposable clone, container or VM. It executes model-written Python and shell commands with the user's rights and asks nothing first
2. Set `PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine
3. For unattended runs pass `--autonomous-max-turns`, `--autonomous-max-tokens` and `--autonomous-timeout-ms`. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded
4. Headless use is `-p` with `--mode json` per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because `/login` is interactive
5. The `-t/--tools`, `-nt/--no-tools` and `-nbt/--no-builtin-tools` flags were removed and now fail as unknown options

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Orca or Prime Agent?

Orca and Prime Agent score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.4 (C) and 56.8 (C). Prime Agent leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Are Orca and Prime Agent open source?

Yes. Orca is open source (MIT). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Orca or Prime Agent

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- [Agent Zero vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.md)
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---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp