head to head · open source
pi vs Orca
pi has 106,586 GitHub stars, 13,437 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Orca has 71,017 stars, 4,642 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pi leads on adoption by 50% (106,586 vs 71,017 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 7%. 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 | ★ 107K | ★ 71K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 4.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 107K 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
Pi is a modular agent toolkit written in TypeScript for building and running terminal based AI coding agents. It lives in the developer tooling ecosystem and provides composable packages for LLM integration, agent orchestration, and terminal UI rendering. The project centers on @earendil works/pi coding agent , an interactive CLI agent, supported by core runtime, AI abstraction, and TUI libraries.
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.
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or Orca more popular?
pi has 106,586 GitHub stars and Orca has 71,017. 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 (106,586 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Orca if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.