head to head · open source
pi vs Orca
pi has 119,586 GitHub stars, 15,353 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Orca has 113,485 stars, 7,169 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pi leads on adoption by 5% (119,586 vs 113,485 stars). pi is written in TypeScript under MIT; Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT. pi has attracted 13% 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.
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
| pi | Orca | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 113K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 7.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 120K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 pi
New issues and PRs from new contributors are auto closed by default. Maintainers review auto closed issues daily. See CONTRIBUTING.md. Pi Agent Harness This is the home of the Pi agent harness project including our self extensible coding agent. @earendil works/pi coding agent : Interactive coding agent CLI @earendil works/pi agent core : Agent runtime with tool calling and state management @earendil works/pi ai : Unified multi provider LLM API (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, …) To learn more about Pi: Visit pi.dev, the project website with demos Read the documentation, but you can also ask the agent to explain…
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…
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or Orca more popular?
pi has 119,586 GitHub stars and Orca has 113,485. pi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pi and Orca free?
Both are open source. pi is licensed under MIT and Orca under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pi and Orca?
pi is written in TypeScript 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, pi or Orca?
Choose pi if you want the larger community (119,586 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Orca if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.