head to head · open source
Orca vs Jean
Orca has 113,485 GitHub stars, 7,169 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jean has 1,387 stars, 172 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Orca leads on adoption by 8,082% (113,485 vs 1,387 stars). Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT; Jean is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Orca has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Jean 12%. 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
| Orca | Jean | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 113K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 172 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Orca if
- You weight community size — 113K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Jean if
- You want the Jean feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Jean fits your workflow better
About Orca
Orca 中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · Español · Français · Português The AI Orchestrator for 100x builders. Run Codex, ClaudeCode, OpenCode or Pi side by side — each in its own worktree, tracked in one place. Download Orca Features Mobile Companion Monitor and steer your agents from your phone — get notified when an agent finishes and send follow ups from anywhere. iOS App Store · TestFlight · Android APK 0.0.48 · Docs → Parallel Worktrees Fan one prompt across five agents, each in its own isolated git worktree — compare the results and merge the winner. Docs → Terminal Splits Ghostty class terminals with WebGL rendering…
About Jean
Jean A desktop AI assistant for managing multiple projects, worktrees, and chat sessions with Claude CLI, Codex CLI, Cursor CLI, OpenCode, PI, Command Code, Grok, and Kimi Code. Tauri v2 · React 19 · Rust · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS v4 · shadcn/ui v4 · Zustand v5 · TanStack Query · Pierre Diffs · xterm.js About the Project Jean is an opinionated native desktop app built with Tauri that gives you a powerful interface for working with Claude CLI, Codex CLI, Cursor CLI, OpenCode, PI, Command Code, Grok, and Kimi Code across multiple projects. It has strong opinions about how AI assisted development should work…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Orca or Jean more popular?
Orca has 113,485 GitHub stars and Jean has 1,387. Orca has the larger community by that measure.
Are Orca and Jean free?
Both are open source. Orca is licensed under MIT and Jean under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Orca and Jean?
Orca is written in TypeScript and Jean 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, Orca or Jean?
Choose Orca if you want the larger community (113,485 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Jean if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.