# Orca vs Rovo Dev CLI (slim)

> Orca scores 57.4 (C) to Rovo Dev CLI's 44.1 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md (~6,050 tokens) · this version ~2,480 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-rovo-dev-cli.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orca-vs-rovo-dev-cli
- 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 Rovo Dev CLI's 44.1 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Orca: C 57.4, rank #791 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orca.min.md
- Rovo Dev CLI: E 44.1, rank #1217 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rovo-dev-cli.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 35; Schema & documentation, 65 against 45; Agent ergonomics, 70 against 53; Payments & pricing, 40 against 15; Maintenance & community, 75 against 61. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.
- Rovo Dev CLI, good for Teams already on Jira, Confluence and Bitbucket who want the agent to read and update work items and pages from the terminal or a pipeline. Ahead on Security & auth, 48 against 43; Transparency & trust, 63 against 54.

| Category | Orca | Rovo Dev CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 58 | 35 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 45 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 70 | 53 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 43 | 48 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 15 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 75 | 61 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 54 | 63 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Orca | Rovo Dev CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Lovecast Inc. | Atlassian |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under the Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the Atlassian AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026). No source is published |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, Orca +25: 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.); Rovo Dev CLI 15 (Harness reading of the published rubric, scored on the Rovo Dev subscription the CLI needs. No payment protocol (0). Rovo Dev Standard is $20 a developer a month with 2,000 credits and extra credits are $0.01, both public. The credit multiplier for each model is shown only inside the CLI, and a task is given only as a range (5 to 50 tasks per 2,000 credits), so a run's cost can't be worked out before signing up. Judgement call between the 10 for plan-only pricing and the full 20 (15). Rovo Dev Free gives 350 credits a month, but only on Jira Standard or Premium sites, which are paid plans, and the 30-day Standard trial excludes the CLI (0). An organisation admin activates Rovo Dev and the user creates an API token in a browser (0). 0+15+0+0 = 15.)
- Reliability, Orca +23: 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.); Rovo Dev CLI 35 (Local-package reading, the same as the other closed-source harnesses. Rovo Dev ships inside the Atlassian CLI, which installs from a Homebrew tap with SHA-256 checksums, signed apt and yum repositories and curl downloads for macOS, Linux and Windows on amd64 and arm64, and Rovo Dev downloads itself on first use (20). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). No public issue tracker. The Rovo Dev community board was last active on 16 January 2026, and bugs otherwise go to `/feedback` and Atlassian Support, so open crash reports can't be counted (8). Rovo Dev builds moved from 0.13.x to date-based versions such as 202604.30.2 and 202610.16.1b1, per AtlasCode's changelog and manifest, and have no public changelog, and the Atlassian CLI changelog stops at v1.3.15 while its repository serves 1.3.39 (2). Rovo Dev has been rolling out as a product since October 2025, but the version number carries no stability signal and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life. Judgement call (5). The CLI runs against Atlassian's hosted service, and the Rovo status page has no Rovo Dev component. 20+0+8+2+5 = 35.)
- Schema & documentation, Orca +20: Orca 65 (Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).); Rovo Dev CLI 45 (Framework reading. Server mode lists its /v3 endpoints with request bodies, and an Atlassian engineering post of 27 October 2025 says Swagger docs are served at localhost:<port>/docs. That contract is only visible on a running server, and no schema for the SSE events or the config file was published (12). No llms.txt on support.atlassian.com or developer.atlassian.com, and no Markdown twins found (0). The tools page says what allow, ask and deny do, what YOLO mode skips and that MCP tools keep their permissions, and the settings page gives each default. Little says when not to use a mode (12). Permission levels, console output formats and tool names are enumerated in the settings reference with defaults (10). Server mode has curl, Python and JavaScript examples. No exit codes or error responses are documented beyond the post's note that a failed entitlement check disables every endpoint except healthcheck and shutdown (7). The API path is versioned (/v3), but there is no public changelog for Rovo Dev builds (4). 12+0+12+10+7+4 = 45.)
- Agent ergonomics, Orca +17: 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).); Rovo Dev CLI 53 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. Per-tool allow, ask and deny, `allowedMcpServers` and `disabledMcpServers`, tool lists on subagents and skills, and `/prune` to drop tool results from context (15). The console output format is markdown, simple or raw. No JSON output for `acli rovodev run` is documented, server mode streams JSON events, and no turn or spend cap exists beyond the credit allowance and `/efficiency` (10). No exit codes are documented. Server mode reports entitlement and credit failures, per the engineering post (6). Sessions persist with `--restore`, fork and rename. `--worktree` isolates a run with a lock and keeps the worktree when a non-interactive run leaves changes, and server mode has cancel and reset (15). Sensible defaults, but no SDK, and a run needs an API token, a Rovo Dev licence and an activated site (7). 15+10+6+15+7 = 53.)
- Maintenance & community, Orca +14: 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.); Rovo Dev CLI 61 (Atlassian's AtlasCode extension, which downloads the same Rovo Dev binary for the IDE, pinned build 202610.16.1b1 in its pre-release of 16 October 2026, and the Atlassian CLI repository served 1.3.39-stable on 23 September 2026. We didn't run the CLI to read the version it installs. Judgement call (30). AtlasCode pinned eight Rovo Dev builds between 23 July and 16 October 2026 (20). No public changelog for the builds. Support is through Atlassian Support and the community, where the Rovo Dev board was last active on 16 January 2026 (5). No SDK and no registry entry. The server-mode API is kept current for the IDE extension (3). The Homebrew formula carries checksums and the Linux repositories are signed. There's no public CI (3). 30+20+5+3+3 = 61.)
- Transparency & trust, Rovo Dev CLI +9: 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.); Rovo Dev CLI 63 (Proprietary, with clear terms. The Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026), which say Input and Output are Customer Data and that subcontractors may not train on them (15). The Rovo privacy page keeps Chat and agent inputs and outputs for 30 days and says Rovo has SOC 2, ISO 27001 and data residency, while the Rovo Dev rollout page (modified 27 August 2026) says Rovo Dev has none of the three. We found no retention period for Rovo Dev sessions sent to Atlassian (12). The licensing FAQ promises at least 60 days' notice before Rovo Dev's end of life and dates the Code Reviewer move to 3 December 2026, but gives no date for the CLI's move to the Rovo CLI. Each Atlassian CLI version is supported for six months (14). No telemetry description or opt-out for the CLI was found. AtlasCode's changelog documents Rovo Dev telemetry events in the IDE, which this listing doesn't cover (0). 15+12+14+0 = 41.)