Omniscio CompareOrca vs Herdr

Orca vs Herdr: which to use for parallel coding agents

Pick Orca if you want a desktop app that shows you the work: a git worktree per task, a diff you can comment on line by line, an editor, a browser and pull requests opened without leaving the window. Pick Herdr if your agents live on more than one machine and you want them to keep running when the laptop shuts, with a terminal interface that tells you which agent is blocked. The two are not the same kind of program. Herdr's own comparison page describes worktree and diff review as something it pairs with, and puts the tools that do it in a separate column. As of October 2026 Orca is a free, MIT-licensed desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, and Herdr is an Apache-2.0 Rust binary that runs inside the terminal you already use.

Every fact about both tools was read from the vendor's own pages on October 29, 2026. By the Omniscio team.

How do Orca and Herdr compare?

	Orca	Herdr
What it is	A desktop app for running coding agents, made by Stably AI.	A background server that holds your agents' terminals open, installed as the `herdr` binary.
Platforms	macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel, Windows 10 and 11, and Linux.	macOS, Linux and Windows, with native Windows support listed as generally available.
Price and licence	Free and open source under MIT. An Enterprise tier has no published price.	Free and open source under Apache-2.0. Herdr Cloud is announced as coming soon, with no price.
Agents	Any CLI agent. 41 ship preconfigured with one-click setup.	22 agent CLIs detected out of the box. It does not wrap them; it owns their terminals.
Isolation	A git worktree and branch for every task, made when the task is made.	None of its own. It pairs with a worktree manager rather than making worktrees.
Review and merge	A diff viewer with line comments and hunk staging, then commit, push and open the pull request from the app.	Outside the product. Review happens in whatever you pair it with.
Away from the desk	Agents survive quitting the app, a phone companion reads them, and remote work runs on SSH hosts and servers you control.	Agents survive closing the client, and saved SSH machines put several computers in one window.
Lives in	Its own window, with a browser pane and a code editor inside it.	Your terminal. One binary, or Homebrew, mise or Nix.

Neither tool sells model access. Orca runs the agents you already subscribe to and shows their usage against your rate limits. Herdr does not wrap the agents at all, so each one behaves exactly as it ships.

What does Orca do well?

Orca is built around the worktree. Create a task and Orca makes it a real on-disk copy of the repository with its own branch, its own files and its own agent terminals, branching from the base ref or from a local branch, a commit SHA or a remote branch you name. You can start that task from a GitHub pull request, a Linear issue, a Jira issue or a GitLab merge request, and the link stays on the task card. Nothing is stashed and no branch is juggled by hand.

The path from a finished agent turn to merged code is where Orca spends most of its effort. Each worktree has a diff against the ref it started from, with line numbers on both sides, staging by hunk or by line, a three-way conflict view you resolve in place, and a comment thread on any changed line that goes back to the agent. Terminal tabs show each agent's identity and whether it is working, waiting for input, completed or completed but unread. Commit, push, open the pull request and wait on its checks all happen in the same window.

Closing the app does not stop the agents. A background daemon owns the terminal processes, so quitting Orca leaves Claude Code, Codex and the rest working, and the next launch reattaches to the same processes with their scrollback and split layout intact. A reboot is the exception: the daemon dies with the machine, and the layout returns without the processes. The status bar tracks usage against the plan for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, OpenCode and several others, with a warning chip once an account crosses 80 percent of a limit.

Remote work is a first-class path rather than a hosted service. Orca runs on your desktop by default, and when you want compute elsewhere it uses SSH targets, a self-hosted Orca server or cloud machines on accounts you control. The mobile companion, in beta on iOS and Android, pairs with that desktop and gives you a read-mostly view: agent status, recent scrollback, a short reply to a prompt, and the ability to commit. It is deliberately not an editor.

One detail is worth knowing before you install it. Orca pre-fills each supported CLI's permission-bypass flag on new launches, which for Claude Code means --dangerously-skip-permissions, and its docs give the reason: a worktree is disposable, so an agent can experiment without re-confirming each shell command. A setting switches uncustomized terminal launches between that mode and asking. The project also ships constantly: 1.4.244 landed on October 29, 2026, after 1.4.243 on October 28, 1.4.242 on October 27 and 1.4.241 on October 26.

What does Herdr do well?

Herdr starts from a different premise: the agents should outlive the thing you look at them through. A server runs in the background and the terminals live inside it, each agent in its own pane. Close the laptop and they keep working. Come back from another machine and the panes are where you left them. It does not wrap or replace the agent CLIs, so Claude Code is Claude Code, with the same flags and prompts as in a plain terminal.

The useful part is what it knows about each pane. Herdr finds the agent process in a pane and reads the live bottom of the screen, not the scrollback, to decide whether that agent is working, blocked, done or idle, and for an agent whose own integration reports its state it takes those reports instead of reading the screen. For an agent it does read from the screen, blocked is decided strictly: it fires only when the visible screen matches a known approval, question or permission prompt, and a prompt Herdr has not seen before can show as idle until it learns that screen's shape. That state rolls up to the tab, the tab to the workspace, and the sidebar answers the only question that matters with a dozen agents running, which one is waiting on you. It detects 22 agent CLIs out of the box.

Machines are the second pillar. Save an SSH host once and its workspaces and agents sit beside your local ones in the same window, each machine keeping its own server and its own processes, so losing the connection to one does not disturb the others. When the server itself restarts, the layout comes back and native agent session restore is on by default, but it only resumes a conversation for an agent whose Herdr integration is installed, or for one that reports its own resume command: with the Claude Code integration in place the pane comes back as claude --resume, and for an agent with neither it comes back as a plain shell. An experimental handoff can carry the live processes across an update.

Herdr also exposes the same surface to programs as to you. The CLI and a local socket API let a script, or another agent, create a pane, start an agent in it, send a prompt and wait until that agent is blocked, which makes a lead-and-helpers arrangement possible without an orchestrator product on top. It is honest about the trade: its own comparison page calls Conductor, Emdash and Superset (now Paradev) manager apps and says it pairs with a worktree manager. Pane screen history is off by default, because pane output can hold secrets and prompts.

Where do they differ most?

An app you open, or a runtime underneath

Orca is the place the work happens: worktrees, terminals, diffs, an editor, a browser and pull requests, in one window. Herdr is the layer the work sits on, and every interface to it is a client that attaches. Herdr says this about itself, placing manager apps in a separate column from the runtime it says it is. That single difference decides most of the rest of this page.

One desktop, or several machines

Both reach beyond one computer, in different shapes. Orca keeps a desktop as the centre and treats SSH hosts, self-hosted Orca servers and cloud machines as places a worktree can run. Herdr makes several machines one workspace list, each with its own server, and expects you to attach from whatever terminal is nearest.

What survives when the window closes

Both keep agents alive after the interface goes away, and neither survives a bare reboot with its processes running. Past that they diverge. Orca's daemon reattaches you to the same processes after a quit, and restores layout and scrollback alone after a reboot. Herdr restores the layout on a server restart and resumes the agent's own conversation by default where its Herdr integration is installed or it reports its own resume command, so the work continues from its own session history rather than from a dead process.

Reviewing the work

This is the clearest split. Orca has a real review surface: a diff against the starting ref, comments on lines that return to the agent, hunk staging, conflict resolution, then push and pull request with checks. Herdr has none of that, and its comparison page says so, filing worktree and diff review as something it pairs with and crediting manager apps with it as their core. If reviewing agent output is the part you care about, Orca covers it and Herdr expects you to bring something else.

Knowing which agent is waiting on you

Both tell an agent apart from a shell, and both surface which one needs you. Orca names the agent on its terminal tab and marks it working, waiting for input, completed or completed but unread, and its notifications lean on the difference between finished and paused. Herdr reads each pane to a working, blocked, done or idle state that rolls up to tabs and workspaces, and for an agent it reads from the screen its blocked state comes from matching a real approval or question screen, which makes a sidebar full of agents readable at a glance.

The permission defaults

Orca pre-fills the bypass flag for new agent launches, on the argument that a worktree makes the blast radius small. Herdr takes no position: it owns the terminal and leaves the agent's own prompts intact, and marks the pane blocked when it recognises one. A third approach exists on the isolation question. Omniscio, the app we make, keeps worktree isolation off by default for Claude Code sessions and lets you turn it on per session, per project or across the app.

A terminal, an editor, or both

Orca brings its own surfaces: a Monaco editor with autosave, a Chromium browser pane scoped to the worktree by default, and an xterm.js terminal. Herdr brings none, by design, and runs inside the terminal you already chose, which is the reason it can be attached over plain SSH. If you want one window with an editor in it, Orca is that window. If you want your own editor and a thin layer under it, Herdr stays out of the way.

Which one should you use?

Orca fits if

You review agent code yourself and want the diff, the comments and the pull request in one window.
You think in worktrees and want one made for you whenever you start a task, linked to the issue or pull request it belongs to.
You want to check on agents from a phone, or run a worktree on a machine you own over SSH.
Free and open source matters, with a commercial tier there if your company asks for one later.

Herdr fits if

You work in a terminal and do not want another window in the loop.
Your agents run on more than one machine and you want one list of them, from anywhere.
You want the sidebar to tell you which agent needs an answer, without opening twelve panes.
You want to drive agents from scripts or from other agents, and you are happy to bring your own review tool.

If neither shape fits, there is a third option. Omniscio is the desktop app we make, and it sits between the two: a window you open, like Orca, with the session list as the centre of it rather than a worktree list. Any model, any harness — Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Devin, Pi, and Hermes all supported. It runs many sessions at once and floats the sessions waiting on you to the top. Worktree isolation gives a session its own branch and working directory, and you turn it on per session, per project or for the whole app. Engines whose tools run outside Claude Code's guardrail hooks are isolated by default in a git project: Gemini, Grok, Antigravity, OpenCode, Hermes, Pi, Kimi Code and DeepSeek Harness, and only a choice made for that one session overrides it. There is a hard spending cap per session, which stops a session running on a pay-per-use API key when it reaches the limit; a session on a Claude Pro or Max subscription is never spend-capped. It installs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Free covers 8 projects and 10 agents running at once, and Pro is $20/month or $192/year. The features page lists what it does, and the download page has the installers.

How we tested

Neither app was installed for this page, so the honest way to describe two programs we could not run is to say so and to quote their own documentation instead. Every statement about Orca or Herdr rests on that project's own site, docs, comparison table, changelog or release page, and each one carries the date it was read and a link to where it came from.

Both projects move quickly. Orca's newest release when we looked was 1.4.244, published on October 29, 2026, the fourth release in four days. Herdr's was 0.9.5, published on October 14, 2026. Read the vendor's page before you rely on a copy of this page from a few months back, and if a step here does not match what you see, the vendor outranks us.

One thing this page cannot tell you is how either app feels to use, because nobody here used it. Where a claim would need a judgement, such as whether a permission default is right for you, the sentence stays with what the vendor states and leaves the verdict to you.

Sources

Every claim about another tool on this page rests on one of these, and the date beside each one is the day we read it.

Orca: the docs introduction, for what Orca is, the worktree, terminal and browser tab per task, and that it runs the agents and subscriptions you already have. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the download page, for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, Windows 10 and 11, the Linux AppImage, the Homebrew cask and the free, open-source line. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the worktree model, for a worktree per task, the base ref and start-from ref, the start-from picker, the issue and pull request links and the create, work, review, ship path. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: supported agents, for the preconfigured picker and the permission-bypass flag Orca fills in for new launches, with the docs' own reason. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the diff viewer, for the diff against the starting ref, both-side line numbers, hunk and line staging, the merge-conflict view and line comments. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the terminal, for the xterm.js terminal and the agent state shown on an agent terminal tab. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the per-worktree browser, for the embedded Chromium pane and its worktree scoping, and the editor, for Monaco and autosave. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: session restore, for the daemon that owns the terminal processes, what survives a quit and what a reboot ends. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: notifications, for the finished-versus-paused signal, and usage and rate-limit tracking, for the providers it reads and the 80 percent warning chip. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the mobile companion, for the iOS and Android apps, the beta label, what you can do from a phone and the line that it is not a full editor. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: the Enterprise page, for SOC 2 readiness, self-hosting and the statement that Orca never sits in the middle of provider traffic, and for the absence of a published price. Read October 29, 2026.
Orca: its latest release, version 1.4.244 on 29 October 2026, and its changelog, for the release dates that week. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: its homepage, for the runtime and the background server, the ten-second pitch that agents keep working when you walk away, 22 detected agent CLIs, the terminal it runs inside and the line that it does not wrap or replace the agents. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: the agents guide, for how it finds an agent in a pane, reads the live bottom of the screen, rolls state up to tabs and workspaces, and marks blocked only on a real approval or question screen. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: connecting machines, for saved SSH machines in one window, a server per machine, and independent reconnects. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: session state and restore, for what detach, a server restart and live handoff each preserve, native agent session restore being on by default with claude --resume, and pane history being off by default. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: agent automation, for the CLI and socket API, starting an agent in a pane, prompting it and waiting on its lifecycle state. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: its own comparison page, for the capability table that marks worktree and diff review as something Herdr pairs with, and for the column that files Conductor, Emdash and Superset (now Paradev) as manager apps. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: the install page, for the one-line installer, Homebrew, mise and Nix and the per-platform binaries, and the Windows page, for native Windows support being generally available. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: the Herdr Cloud page, for the coming-soon notice and the waitlist, and the absence of a price. Read October 29, 2026.
Herdr: its latest release, version 0.9.5 on 14 October 2026. Read October 29, 2026.
Omniscio: the features page, for concurrent sessions, the engines, needs-you sorting, the per-session hard cap with its subscription exemption, and the notification surfaces. Read October 29, 2026.
Omniscio: the download page, for the platforms it installs on. Read October 29, 2026.
Omniscio: the pricing page, for Free covering 8 projects and 10 agents running at once, Pro at $20/month or $192/year, and Free standing on its own as a plan. Read October 29, 2026.
Omniscio: the session isolation page, for isolation being off by default, the per-session, per-project and app-wide cascade, and the eight engines whose sessions isolate by default. Read October 29, 2026.

Common questions

Is Orca or Herdr better for running several coding agents?

They solve different halves of the problem. Orca gives every task a git worktree, a terminal, a browser tab and a diff you can comment on, all inside one desktop app. Herdr holds the agents' terminals open on a background server and marks which one is blocked, including machines you reach over SSH. Herdr says in its own comparison that worktree and diff review is something it pairs with rather than something it does.

Does Orca keep running when I close it?

Yes, until the machine goes down. A background daemon owns the terminal processes, so quitting the app leaves agents working and reopening it reattaches to the same processes with their scrollback. A reboot or a hard power-off ends them, and Orca restores the layout and the last saved scrollback only.

Does Herdr review code or merge pull requests?

No. Herdr's own capability table marks worktree and diff review as something it pairs with, and lists Conductor, Emdash and Superset (now Paradev) as manager apps that do it as their core. Herdr owns the terminals and the agent state; the reviewing stays with whatever you put around it.

Can I use Orca and Herdr together?

Herdr's own comparison page says it pairs with a worktree manager and runs fine inside a terminal you already chose, but neither project documents an integration with the other. Running both would mean two programs holding the same work, so pick the shape that matches your day: a desktop app that reviews, or a runtime that outlives the window.

Which one is free?

Both are free and open source. Orca is MIT licensed and its download page lists macOS, Windows and Linux builds, with an Enterprise tier that has no published price. Herdr is Apache-2.0 and also ships for all three, and its Herdr Cloud service is announced as coming soon with a waitlist and no price. Neither sells model access: you bring the Claude or Codex account you already pay for.

Other tools worth a look

Orca and Herdr are two shapes of the same answer, and neither is the only one. The comparison hub puts the rest of them in one table: where each one runs, how it keeps sessions apart and what it costs.

If you want a manager app rather than a runtime, Conductor is one of the three Herdr's page puts in that column, and Conductor vs Claude Squad weighs it against a terminal-based alternative.
If you want a full desktop IDE for agents, the Claude Code desktop page covers Anthropic's own app against the field.
If you are weighing a single agent rather than an orchestrator, Claude Code vs Codex goes through where each one runs and what each asks before it acts.
For the parallel-session basics behind both tools, read how to run multiple Claude Code sessions at once.

Run many Claude Code sessions in parallel

Omniscio installs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and gives each session its own branch and working directory once you switch that on. Free covers 8 projects and 10 agents running at once, and Pro is $20/month or $192/year.

Download Omniscio See the features