head to head · open source
Orca vs Tabby
Orca has 71,017 GitHub stars, 4,642 forks, 5,801 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tabby has 33,884 stars, 1,788 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Orca leads on adoption by 110% (71,017 vs 33,884 stars). Orca is written in TypeScript under MIT; Tabby is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Orca has attracted 7% 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. The two share 1 topic tag (ide), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | ★ 71K | ★ 34K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-06-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.6K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 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 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 Tabby
Tabby is a self hosted, open source AI coding assistant that acts as an on premises alternative to GitHub Copilot, aimed at developers and engineering teams that want code completion and chat without routing source code through a third party cloud service.
read the full Tabby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Orca or Tabby more popular?
Orca has 71,017 GitHub stars and Tabby has 33,884. 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 (71,017 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tabby if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.