# Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs withHuman

> Orkes Conductor Human tasks scores 54 (C) on agent readiness against withHuman's 51.8 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. withHuman leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do hitl approve. Category scores…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-withhuman
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-withhuman.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-withhuman.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-withhuman.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Orkes Conductor Human tasks scores 54 (C) on agent readiness against withHuman's 51.8 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. withHuman leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do hitl approve.

- Orkes Conductor Human tasks: grade C, 54/100, rank #537 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orkes-conductor.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/orkes-conductor.json
- withHuman: grade D, 51.8/100, rank #573 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/withhuman.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/withhuman.json

## Which one, for what

### Orkes Conductor Human tasks (C)

Good for: Teams that already orchestrate agents as Conductor workflows and need formal routing, per-assignee deadlines and escalation without writing them.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 32 against 16
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 49

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: No built-in Slack or email prompt, so alerts need a trigger policy and a second workflow

### withHuman (D)

Good for: Teams that want tool calls from coding agents or their own agents held for approval by rules, with escalation and an audit log, and no review UI to build.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 74 against 69
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 53 against 44

Watch for: The terms say the service is in early access, and the API document is version 0.1.0


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Orkes Conductor Human tasks | withHuman | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 32 | 16 | Orkes Conductor Human tasks +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 81 | withHuman +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 74 | withHuman +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 73 | withHuman +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | withHuman +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 49 | Orkes Conductor Human tasks +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 44 | 53 | withHuman +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **54 · C** | **51.8 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Orkes Conductor Human tasks | withHuman |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Orkes | Metoro Inc |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://developer.orkescloud.com/api` | `https://app.withhuman.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (Conductor OSS and SDKs), proprietary (Orkes Conductor) | Proprietary hosted service under Metoro Inc's terms. The site describes an open-source edition, but the repository it links to returned 404 on 8 October 2026 |
| Tools exposed | 19 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.conductor-oss/conductor-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-10 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-02-23 | 2026-09-04 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Orkes Conductor Human tasks.** Escalation chains with a time limit per assignee and a choice of leaving the task open or failing the workflow. No built-in Slack or email prompt, so alerts need a trigger policy and a second workflow.

**withHuman.** The approval API is small and carefully specified, with a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, mandatory idempotency keys and agent credentials that can never approve. The service is in early access under its own terms, with no status page, published rate limits or changelog, and the open-source repository the site links to returned 404 on 8 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### Orkes Conductor Human tasks

1. Give every assignment you want to escalate from a non-zero `slaMinutes`, since 0 never expires and nothing can follow it
2. Pick `TERMINATE` for risky actions so an unanswered approval fails the workflow instead of staying open to anyone
3. Start approval workflows with an `idempotencyKey` and `RETURN_EXISTING`, so a retried start doesn't ask twice
4. Refresh the JWT from `/api/token` with a set expiry instead of requesting one that never expires
5. Fetch single doc pages, not llms.txt, which is the whole documentation in 2.57 MB

### withHuman

1. Send an `Idempotency-Key` header on `POST /api/aap/v1/requests`. The call answers 400 without one
2. Read the decision with `GET /api/aap/v1/requests/{id}?wait=30s` and repeat while `status` is `pending`. `wait` is capped at 30 seconds
3. Set `timeout` between one second and seven days, and treat `expired` and `cancelled` as a refusal
4. Start an approved call within five minutes of `decided_at`, because the decision carries an `expires_at`
5. Cancel a request when you stop waiting, so reviewers stop seeing it

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Orkes Conductor Human tasks or withHuman?

Orkes Conductor Human tasks scores 54 (C) on agent readiness against withHuman's 51.8 (D), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. withHuman leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call Orkes Conductor Human tasks and withHuman without installing anything?

Yes. Orkes Conductor Human tasks has a hosted endpoint at https://developer.orkescloud.com/api and withHuman at https://app.withhuman.ai.

### Are Orkes Conductor Human tasks and withHuman open source?

Orkes Conductor Human tasks is open source (Apache-2.0 (Conductor OSS and SDKs), proprietary (Orkes Conductor)). No open-source release is listed for withHuman.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Orkes Conductor Human tasks or withHuman

- [gotoHuman vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
- [gotoHuman vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Inngest vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
- [Inngest vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inngest-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Permit MCP Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-permit-mcp-gateway.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Pushary](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-pushary.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-restate.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-temporal.md)
- [Orkes Conductor Human tasks vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orkes-conductor-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Permit MCP Gateway vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/permit-mcp-gateway-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Pushary vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pushary-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Restate vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/restate-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Temporal vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/temporal-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Trigger.dev vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/trigger-dev-vs-withhuman.md)