Buzz vs Orca
Buzz (Block) and Orca (Stably) side by side on public data, as of Oct 10, 2026.
Orca has 2.5x the GitHub stars of Buzz (88.8K against 35.8K). Buzz shipped 50 stable releases in the past 90 days.
Which should you choose?
Choose Orca if
- you want to switch between model providers (9 documented against 0)
- you want to run it unattended in scripts or CI
- you want subagents or several agents working in parallel
Built from documented features, official prices, status pages and usage data on this page; it does not judge output quality.
Side-by-side numbers
| Metric | Buzz | Orca |
|---|---|---|
| Gid Score | 43 | 50 |
| Overall rank | #101 | #66 |
| Downloads, last 7 days | — | — |
| Downloads, 7-day change | — | — |
| Downloads, 30-day change | — | — |
| VS Code installs | — | — |
| Marketplace rating | — | — |
| GitHub stars | 35.8K | 88.8K |
| Homebrew installs, 30 days | — | — |
| Hacker News mentions, 30 days | 0 | 4 |
| Latest stable release | 0.5.28 · yesterday | 1.4.224 · today |
| Stable releases, 90 days | 50 | |
| Terminal-Bench (best run) | — | — |
| Price | Free (OSS) | Free (OSS) |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| First released | March 2026 | March 2026 |
| Interfaces | — | — |
| Models |
Trends
Buzz
Self-hostable workspace where people and AI agents share channels, and messages, workflows, code reviews and Git events are stored as signed events on a Nostr relay the team runs. Agents have their own keys and can open repositories, send patches and run workflows.
Pricing: Free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Latest release 0.5.28:
- test(desktop): move CSP guards from Rust to the desktop JS suite (#8172) (5142cf6b2a0f44686eeda1ed07905ee3560fd78e)
- fix(desktop): repair the Windows notification shim's false denial on read (#5600) (99924a5a69200d34f5cc67e9b76748d7ece72705)
- feat: raise hosted community limit to fifty (#8186) (8f66f7051c68560feb27dbc74b069c851bc018bd)
- feat(desktop): browse and moderate every community in the Admin Console (#8027) (836e7d0d06789765b4d98a93c2b509a2a0fbd1bf)
Orca
Orca is an open-source desktop agent development environment that runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi and other CLI agents side by side, each in its own git worktree, with terminals and a mobile companion app for monitoring agents.
Pricing: Free and open source (MIT).
Latest release 1.4.224:
- Automations can now set the agent's model and effort for each run. In the automation editor, open Advanced and fill in Extra agent arguments (or use --extra-agent-args with orca automations create…
- SSH hosts now run a managed Orca server. Orca ships its own runtime and sets it up when you connect, so connections no longer fail because a host has the wrong Node version or no build tools. A…
- Native chat (experimental): If you turned on Chat UI with chat as your default view, supported agents now open in the structured chat by default. If Terminal was your default, new agent tabs stay…
- More in native chat: Recent versions of OpenCode (including 2.x), Pi and OMP open as structured chats on this computer. Agents can draw charts, diagrams and mockups right inside a reply, on…
Buzz vs Orca: common questions
Which is more popular, Buzz or Orca?
Orca has a Gid Score of 50 against 43 for Buzz. The score combines package downloads, editor installs, GitHub activity and attention, updated daily.
Do Buzz and Orca support MCP servers?
Orca documents support for MCP servers; Buzz's documentation does not.