head to head · open source
Orca vs Tabby
Orca has 113,485 GitHub stars, 7,169 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tabby has 33,921 stars, 1,793 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Orca leads on adoption by 235% (113,485 vs 33,921 stars). Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT; Tabby is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Orca has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Tabby 5%. 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 | Tabby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 113K | ★ 34K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 Tabby if
- You want the Tabby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Tabby 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 Tabby
🐾 Tabby 📚 Docs • 💬 Slack • 🗺️ Roadmap English 简体中文 日本語 Tabby is a self hosted AI coding assistant, offering an open source and on premises alternative to GitHub Copilot. It boasts several key features: Self contained, with no need for a DBMS or cloud service. OpenAPI interface, easy to integrate with existing infrastructure (e.g Cloud IDE). Supports consumer grade GPUs. 🔥 What's New 12/12/2025 Get your GitHub issues implemented by connecting them to Pochi tasks and create PRs directly from the sidebar with a breakdown of CI/Lint/Test results vscode@0.20.0. 07/02/2025 v0.30 supports indexing GitLab Merge…
read the full Tabby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Orca or Tabby more popular?
Orca has 113,485 GitHub stars and Tabby has 33,921. Orca has the larger community by that measure.
Are Orca and Tabby free?
Both are open source. Orca is licensed under MIT, and Tabby has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Orca and Tabby?
Orca is written in TypeScript and Tabby in Rust. 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 Tabby?
Choose Orca if you want the larger community (113,485 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tabby if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.