head to head · open source
Orca vs SWE-agent
Orca has 113,485 GitHub stars, 7,169 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SWE-agent has 20,712 stars, 2,264 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Orca leads on adoption by 448% (113,485 vs 20,712 stars). Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT; SWE-agent is written in Python under MIT. Orca has attracted 6% 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 | ★ 113K | ★ 21K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 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 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 SWE-agent
[!warning] Most of our current development effort is on mini swe agent, which has superseded SWE agent. It matches the performance performance of SWE agent, while being much simpler. See the FAQ for more details about the differences. Our general recommendation is to use mini SWE agent instead of SWE agent going forward. SWE agent enables your language model of choice (e.g. GPT 4o or Claude Sonnet 4) to autonomously use tools to fix issues in real GitHub repositories, find cybersecurity vulnerabilities, or perform any custom task. ✅ State of the art on SWE bench among open source projects ✅ Free flowing &…
read the full SWE-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Orca or SWE-agent more popular?
Orca has 113,485 GitHub stars and SWE-agent has 20,712. 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 (113,485 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose SWE-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.