head to head · open source
caveman vs Orca
caveman has 108,615 GitHub stars, 6,296 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped today. Orca has 82,501 stars, 5,357 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped today. caveman leads on adoption by 32% (108,615 vs 82,501 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Orca 6%. Orca was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (claude-code), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| caveman | Orca | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 109K | ★ 83K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 5.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 109K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Orca if
- You want the Orca feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Orca fits your workflow better
About caveman
why use many token when few do trick Your AI coding agent bills by the word and writes like it knows that. Caveman make it stop. ▶️ ThePrimeagen reacts: "No way this actually works" 🏆 1 on GitHub Trending · July 2026 · 🥇 1 Repository of the Day on Trendshift · April 2026 1 on Hacker News · 904 points · 366 comments · 8 Product of the Day on Product Hunt 📄 Cited in CAVEWOMAN , an Adobe Research paper that measured caveman style output cutting cost 1.4 to 2.4×, up to 3× · 🧪 Tested by JetBrains on 86 real coding tasks: "costs you nothing measurable in quality" ⚡ One command, no account, no API key. npx skills…
read the full caveman overview →
About Orca
Orca is an agent desktop environment (ADE) that runs multiple AI coding agents in parallel, each in its own isolated git worktree. It unifies workflow, monitoring, and collaboration around AI assisted coding across desktop, mobile, and remote runtimes. Built for developers who rely on several AI coding tools simultaneously, Orca eliminates context switching by tracking all agents and their outputs in one place.
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or Orca more popular?
caveman has 108,615 GitHub stars and Orca has 82,501. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and Orca free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Orca under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caveman and Orca?
caveman is written in Go and Orca in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, caveman or Orca?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (108,615 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Orca if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.