Claurst vs Orca (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?

Both are popular terminal coding agents. Here is how Claurst and Orca stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.

Claurst

Open-source Rust terminal coding agent with ACP support for Zed, Neovim, JetBrains

7.0 /10

Pricing: Open source

Pros

Speaks the open Agent Client Protocol, so it plugs into Zed, Neovim, and JetBrains as a native agent
Multi-provider AI routing rather than lock-in to one vendor, plus a plugin system and chat forking
Fully open source (GPL-3.0) with no telemetry/tracking by the maintainer's own account; actively developed (commits within the last month)

Cons

Still officially Beta (v0.1.7); the README itself flags /share, Free Mode, /goal, and "ultracode" as experimental
Originated as a clean-room reimplementation of Claude Code's behavior rather than an original design, so parity with the original may lag

Visit Claurst ↗

Orca

An ADE for running fleets of coding agents in parallel worktrees, from desktop or mobile

8.0 /10

Pricing: Open source

Pros

Runs multiple coding agents in parallel isolated worktrees with diff comparison
Free, open source (MIT), backed by Y Combinator
Mobile companion apps for monitoring/steering agents remotely

Cons

No hosted/managed tier documented — you bring your own agent subscriptions
Extremely fast recent star growth is worth watching, even though the activity looks organic

Visit Orca ↗

Claurst vs Orca at a glance

	Claurst	Orca
Editor score	7.0 / 10	8.0 / 10
Pricing model	Open source	Open source
Starting price	Free	Free
Reader upvotes	0	0
Best for	terminal, rust, acp	ade, parallel-agents, claude-code
Agent Skills support	No	No
Subagents support	No	No
MCP support	No	No
AGENTS.md support	No	No
Plugins support	No	No
Hooks support	No	No
Rules support	No	No
Agent skills in this directory	0	0
Subagents & agents in this directory	3	3
MCP servers in this directory	0	0

Our pick

Orca edges it with a score of 8.0 versus 7.0. Orca is the better fit if you value: runs multiple coding agents in parallel isolated worktrees with diff comparison, free, open source (mit), backed by y combinator. Choose Claurst instead if you need: speaks the open agent client protocol, so it plugs into zed, neovim, and jetbrains as a native agent, multi-provider ai routing rather than lock-in to one vendor, plus a plugin system and chat forking.