Orca alternatives in 2026: 8 apps for running coding agents in parallel

Disclosure: Enjoy is our product. We checked every app below against its maker’s own pages on November 10, 2026, and we say where another app is the better pick, Orca included.

Orca alternatives compared

Orca, from Stably AI, is free, open source and busy: its GitHub repository has more than 121,000 stars, and version 1.4.255 came out on November 9. The reasons to look past it are mostly things it leaves to you, such as a machine that stays on, or hasn’t finished, such as its phone app. These are the alternatives, side by side.

App	Best for	Price, checked November 10, 2026	Runs on	Agents
Orca	The most agents, free and open source	Free	Mac, Windows, Linux	41 in its docs, and any command-line agent
Emdash	Issues from your trackers, free and open source	Free	Mac, Windows, Linux	35 in its docs
T3 Code	A simpler, free control plane	Free	Mac, Windows, Linux	Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build, OpenCode, Antigravity, and more
Paseo	Agents on several machines, with a full phone app	Free; hosted Hub from $0, Pro $15 a seat a month	Mac, Windows, Linux	Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, OpenCode, Pi, OMP, Antigravity, Muse Code, and ACP agents
Herdr	Agents in real terminals, across machines	Free	Mac (Apple silicon), Windows, Linux	Anything that runs in a terminal
Paradev, formerly Superset	Teams on Macs, with cloud workspaces	Free for one user; Pro $20 a user a month; Team $60; Ultra $200	Mac; Linux experimental	Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and any command-line agent
Enjoy	Switching agents mid-conversation, and accounts when usage runs out	A monthly subscription, free for 7 days, with your phone and one computer (pricing)	Mac, Windows, Linux	Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build, Antigravity, Muse Code, OpenCode
Claude Code Desktop	Only Claude, with cloud sessions	Included in Claude Pro ($20 a month), Max ($100), Ultra ($200), Team and Enterprise	Mac, Windows; Linux in beta	Claude Code
The ChatGPT desktop app	Only Codex	Included in every ChatGPT plan, from Free; Plus is $20 a month	Mac, Windows; Linux in preview	Codex

Prices are per month as each maker lists them, before tax. The independent apps run your agents on your own Claude, ChatGPT or other plans and API keys, which those companies bill for separately. Claude Code Desktop and the ChatGPT app come with those plans.

Why people look for an Orca alternative

Orca does a lot for free, so the reasons are specific. Each is in Orca’s own words:

• The phone app is in beta. “The mobile companion is in beta,” its mobile docs say, and “The paired desktop owns the agent sessions,” so the phone follows your computer.
• An always-on machine is yours to run. “Orca does not sell managed VPS hosting,” says Ways to run. “Remote Orca Servers are beta,” and the server must be “awake, online, and running Orca,” reached over Tailscale.
• Agents running agents is experimental. “Enable orchestration under Settings → Experimental before using these commands,” says its orchestration page, and “The experimental Orchestration panel and its switch are temporarily unavailable.”
• You switch accounts by hand. For Codex and Claude Code, “Pick an account; any new Codex session launched after that uses it,” and “Sessions already running keep their original account until restarted,” its accounts page says. It doesn’t describe switching when usage runs out.
• Agents don’t ask first, by default. “Orca pre-fills each supported CLI’s permission-bypass flag for new launches,” because “worktrees are disposable,” says its agents page. You can switch to Manual mode under Settings → Agents → Agent Permissions.

Emdash

Best for: sending issues from your trackers straight to agents, free.

“Emdash is a desktop app for running AI coding agents in parallel. Each task runs in its own Git worktree,” its README says. You can send issues from “Linear, GitHub, Jira, GitLab, Asana, Featurebase, Monday.com, Forgejo, Plain, or YouTrack into an agent,” review diffs and CI checks, and “work locally or on your own remote machines over SSH/SFTP.” Its docs say “Emdash supports 35 coding agent CLIs,” and automations “run an agent prompt on a schedule in a project.”

Price: free, under the Apache 2.0 license, on macOS, Windows and Linux. You “bring the CLI agents you already use.”

Watch for: Emdash is in transition. Its homepage now calls the open-source app Emdash Classic and says “new development has moved to Emdash 2.0,” which runs “locally, on your servers or on Emdash cloud” and is behind an early-access sign-up with no published price. And schedules need a machine that’s on: “A stopped machine cannot execute a scheduled run.”

T3 Code

Best for: a simpler, free app for running agents side by side, from your phone too.

T3 Code calls itself “the open-source control plane for coding agents.” Its FAQ says “Bring your own: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build, OpenCode, Google Antigravity, Pi, or Muse Code,” and asked whether it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, answers “Yes, all three. Desktop app, CLI, the works.” It has phone apps for iOS and Android and a web app.

Price: free, under the MIT license: “There’s no way to pay us to use T3 Code.” Its remote service, T3 Connect, “is free too, for now,” and “Every account can connect up to 3 machines running T3 Code.”

Watch for: its README says “We are very very early in this project. Expect bugs.” And from your phone, as with Orca, “Your computer does the work and needs to stay on.”

Paseo

Best for: running agents on several machines, with a full app on your phone.

Paseo is “an open source agentic development environment for desktop, mobile, web, and CLI,” its README says: “Run many agents at once, each in its own worktree, on one machine or several. The mobile app is the full app, native on iOS and Android.” It has “custom implementations for Claude, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, OMP, Antigravity, and Muse Code,” runs more through ACP, and its optional relay is end-to-end encrypted: “Paseo can’t read your traffic.” It downloads for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, with a web app and a command line.

Price: free: “Paseo is Apache 2.0.” Paseo Hub, which starts agents on your machines from GitHub, Slack and Discord, is free to host yourself; hosted, it’s free for 50 agent runs a month and one seat, or $15 a seat a month for unlimited runs.

Watch for: Hub is in beta, and its FAQ says “access to the beta stays small and trusted.” Agents run on machines you keep running, as in Orca.

Herdr

Best for: people who want their agents in real terminals, across several machines.

“Herdr is an app for running coding agents that you shape by asking,” and “Your agents run in herdr-core, a small server on your machine, not in the window.” You can add “any machine you can reach over SSH, like a server, a VM or a cloud sandbox,” and “Any agent can start another, like Claude, Codex or a test script, and tell it where to report.” It works with “Anything that runs in a terminal,” on “macOS (Apple silicon), Linux (x86_64 and arm64) and Windows (x86_64),” with apps for “iPhone, iPad and Android.”

Price: free. “The app, herdr-core and Herdr TUI are open source under Apache 2.0.”

Watch for: the app and the terminal version “don’t share agents, so what runs in one doesn’t show up in the other.” And “If the machine reboots or herdr-core stops, the programs stop too.”

Paradev, formerly Superset

Best for: teams on Macs who want cloud workspaces, so agents don’t need a machine of yours.

“Superset is now Paradev,” its homepage says. Its pitch is “Run an Army of Coding Agents,” and “Paradev works with any CLI-based coding agent, including Claude Code, OpenCode, OpenAI Codex, and more.” It says “Paradev is open source under the MIT License,” and an iPhone and iPad app “lets you check on agents and review their diffs away from your desk.”

Price: the free plan is “For individuals getting started,” with local workspaces, the desktop app and its command line. Pro is $20 a user a month, or $16 billed yearly, and adds remote access, automations and the mobile app. Team is $60, or $54 billed yearly, with cloud workspaces for 150 hours per seat each month. Ultra is $200, with 500 hours, and Enterprise is priced on request.

Watch for: “The desktop app runs on macOS, with an experimental Linux AppImage; Windows is not yet available.”

Enjoy

Best for: keeping work going when an agent or a plan runs out, with a superagent over all your projects.

Enjoy runs Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build, Antigravity, Muse Code, and local models through OpenCode, on Mac, Windows and Linux, on the AI plans you already have. Each conversation runs its own agent, and an agent can work in a worktree, as it would in Orca. What it adds:

• Switch agents mid-conversation. When one lab’s agent is the wrong fit or out of usage, another picks up the same conversation: “The new agent gets the conversation so far, including replies from other agents, before it works on your message.”
• Keep going through limits. When an agent runs out of usage, Enjoy switches to another of your accounts that still has usage, or waits for the limit to reset, then continues, work already running included.
• A superagent over everything. JOY keeps an eye on all your projects: ask it what needs you, catch up on what your agents did, or start work in any project.
• More than code. Projects don’t have to be Git repositories, and workflows can run on a schedule.
• Your phone and any browser. Pair your phone with a code, and use the iPhone app or any browser, end-to-end encrypted.

Price: Enjoy is one monthly subscription, and the first seven days are free, with a card to start. It includes your phone and any browser and one computer; each other computer costs extra each month, and each teammate you invite needs a subscription of their own. See pricing.

Watch for: Enjoy isn’t open source, and it’s a monthly subscription on top of your AI plans once the free week ends, where Orca is free. It runs six agents, where Orca lists 41. Your phone and browsers reach your projects only while your computer is awake and running Enjoy, and scheduled workflows run only then too. And it doesn’t stop two conversations from editing the same files: overlapping work needs a worktree, which you ask for.

Claude Code Desktop

Best for: people who only use Claude, and want work that goes on with the computer off.

Claude Code is the Code tab of Anthropic’s Claude desktop app. You can open new sessions “to work on multiple tasks in parallel,” and cloud sessions “run on Anthropic-managed infrastructure by default and continue even if you close the app or shut down your computer.” You can follow them from the Claude mobile app. It runs on Mac and Windows, with Linux in beta.

Price: “Claude Code is included in all paid plans,” Anthropic’s pricing page says: Pro at $20 a month, or $17 billed yearly, Max at $100, Ultra at $200, Team and Enterprise.

Watch for: it runs only Claude, and “By default, Worktree is off and Claude works in the project folder itself,” so local sessions share one folder unless you turn it on.

The ChatGPT desktop app, for Codex

Best for: people who only use OpenAI.

OpenAI’s desktop app is where Codex runs on your computer: “Run projects in parallel, work with files, use your computer, and keep long-running work moving from one desktop workspace.” You can “Download ChatGPT for macOS, Windows, or Linux,” and on Linux it’s “available in preview.”

Price: on every ChatGPT plan, from Free. Go is $8 a month, Plus $20, and Pro $100, $200 or $500.

Watch for: it runs only Codex, and Free and Go get “GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout,” not OpenAI’s top models.

When to stay with Orca

If you want the widest choice of agents and you’d rather not pay for the app, stay. Its docs list 41 agents that come set up, from Claude Code and Codex to Aider, Goose and Kiro, it runs “any other CLI agent,” and it says “New features shipped daily.” No other app here lists as many set up out of the box.

Stay too if you already have a spare machine and Tailscale. A Remote Orca Server on “an old laptop, Mac mini, home server, cloud VPS, or team box” keeps agents running when your laptop sleeps, and your laptop, browser and phone can share it, with nothing to pay Orca.

Move when the gaps above are the ones you hit every day: a phone app you depend on, accounts that run out mid-task, or nobody to run a server. Most of these apps cost nothing to try, and Enjoy’s first week is free.

How we compared

We read each maker’s homepage, pricing, install and docs pages, and their GitHub repositories, on November 10, 2026, and every one is linked below. We quote their own words for the limits, and we don’t count features a maker hasn’t documented. Roundups at AlternativeTo, OpenAlternative and Paradev list more apps, including AgentsRoom, Friday, Happy, Jean and Nimbalyst, which we didn’t compare here. Conductor isn’t in the table because it stopped taking new users on November 4. This category changes weekly, so we recheck this guide against its sources at least once a month, and the date at the foot of the page says when we last did.