Pragma vs Orca
"The AI Orchestrator for 100x builders" — Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, or Pi in parallel worktrees
MIT · Pragma is AGPL-3.0
Download PragmaOrca is an Electron app supporting several coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, and others), with a terminal, a browser pane whose "Design Mode" turns a clicked UI element into prompt context, SSH worktrees, and a CLI. It ships a mobile companion app (iOS App Store, Android APK, both beta) for steering agents from your phone — terminals, replies, and source-control review and commits — paired to a desktop or a self-hosted "Remote Orca Server" — reaching that desktop off your LAN means signing in to Orca's own hosted "Orca Relay," or running your own Tailscale/VPN.
Orca tracks agent status per worktree rather than moving cards through a board, and its scheduled automations run on a cron rather than reacting to host events. Pragma adds a public plugin API, interactive scratchpads, an agent board, and a tunnel command you run yourself instead of a hosted relay.
Pragma is currently ahead on a few fronts: a public plugin API, interactive MDX scratchpads, a kanban-style agent board, automations that react to host events rather than only a cron, and reaching a desktop off your LAN through a tunnel command you control instead of signing in to a required Orca Relay. Both apps switch agent accounts and show usage, but only Pragma lets a project pick its own account.
Pragma vs Orca, capability by capability
| Capability | Pragma | Orca |
|---|---|---|
| Native shellRust host + the OS webview, not a bundled browser | Tauri + Rust | Electron |
| Agents as pluginsEach integration is its own versioned package with official branding | Yes | Partial |
| Public plugin APIThird-party sidebar tabs, cards, web views, and commands in the app itself | Yes | No |
| Programmable automationsYour own TypeScript running on host events, not just a schedule | Yes | Partial |
| Interactive agent scratchpadsAgents write MDX with live React components you can edit and comment on | Yes | No |
| Agent boardPrompt to review to pull request as tracked cards | Yes | No |
| Fan out + comparison viewOne prompt into N attempts, compared as terminals, diffs, and scratchpads | Yes | Yes |
| Editing suiteCode editor, markdown WYSIWYG, PDF, image, video, and audio viewers | Yes | Partial |
| Built-in AI, your keyInline ⌘K edits, one-click PR drafting, ask-anything from the palette | Yes | Partial |
| Auto agent & model picksA System 1 model picks the agent, model, and reasoning effort for each launch | Yes | No |
| Live agent progressWhat each agent is doing right now, with an estimate of how far it has got | Yes | status only |
| AI merge-conflict resolutionResolves each conflict in the PR view, double-checks uncertain files, then commits | Yes | hands it to an agent |
| Agent accounts & usage limitsEvery agent's accounts and plan usage, switchable globally or per project | Yes | Partial |
| Mobile & web clientPlatforms it ships, and how you reach it off your LAN | iOS, Android, Web — own tunnel | iOS, Android — Orca Relay (hosted) or LAN |
| Persistent host serverSessions, tunnels, and headless launches survive quitting the app | Yes | Partial |
| Remote projectsSSH hosts as first-class remote projects | SSH | SSH + WSL |
| User themesEditable colour tokens per project, not a fixed preset list | Yes | Partial |
| LicenseWhat you are allowed to do with the source | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
Checked against the generalaction/emdash, stablyai/orca, superset-sh/superset repositories (README, LICENSE, and linked docs) as of 2026-08-29, with the mobile row re-verified on 2026-10-06: Orca added a hosted "Orca Relay" tunnel option, and Superset shipped an iPhone app on 2026-09-21 for Pro subscribers. The phone clients are compared in detail on the Pragma Go page. The Auto, agent progress, merge-conflict, and accounts rows were checked on 2026-10-03: Orca and Superset both track usage and switch accounts globally (Superset for Claude Code and Codex), with no per-project choice, and Orca resolves conflicts by launching an agent on them. This space moves fast — if something here is out of date, open an issue on https://github.com/pragma-sh/pragma and we will correct it.
Migrating from Orca to Pragma
No export step: Orca and Pragma both run agents in plain git worktrees, so you can add each existing branch as a Pragma worktree in a couple clicks — nothing to convert.
Same worktrees, no conversion
Orca's "Parallel Worktrees" are git worktrees like everyone else's here. Open the repo in Pragma, then add each branch Orca created as a Pragma worktree — same checkout on disk, nothing to convert.
Re-pair your phone
Pragma Go replaces Orca's paired mobile app: install it on iOS, Android, or open it in a browser, then point it at your own tunnel (ngrok, cloudflared, a Tailscale funnel) instead of signing in to Orca Relay.
Rewrite Orca CLI scripts as `pragma-cli`
`orca worktree create` / `snapshot` map to `pragma-cli`'s worktree and fanout commands, or to `@pragma-sh/sdk` if the script runs from Node — see the CLI and SDK docs for the closest equivalent to each Orca command you rely on.
SSH hosts carry over as-is
If you reach a remote box through Orca's SSH worktrees, add the same host as a Pragma remote project — same credentials, same repo, same worktrees on disk.