head to head · open source
Orca vs SWE-agent
Orca has 71,017 GitHub stars, 4,642 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SWE-agent has 20,344 stars, 2,224 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Orca leads on adoption by 249% (71,017 vs 20,344 stars). Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT; SWE-agent is written in Python under MIT. Orca has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, SWE-agent 11%. 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
| Orca | SWE-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 71K | ★ 20K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.6K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Orca if
- You weight community size — 71K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick SWE-agent if
- You want the SWE-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and SWE-agent fits your workflow better
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.
About SWE-agent
SWE agent is a Python, MIT licensed open source project in the AI assisted coding and agent ecosystem. It is an agent based model for developer tools that takes a GitHub issue and tries to automatically fix it using a chosen language model. The project is associated with NeurIPS 2024 and is maintained by researchers from Princeton University and Stanford University.
read the full SWE-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Orca or SWE-agent more popular?
Orca has 71,017 GitHub stars and SWE-agent has 20,344. Orca has the larger community by that measure.
Are Orca and SWE-agent free?
Both are open source. Orca is licensed under MIT and SWE-agent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Orca and SWE-agent?
Orca is written in TypeScript and SWE-agent in Python. 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 SWE-agent?
Choose Orca if you want the larger community (71,017 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose SWE-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.