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

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

Codeburn

Free local dashboard that tracks AI coding token spend across 40+ tools

6.5 /10

Pricing: Open source

Pros

100% local — reads existing session files with no account, API keys, or uploads; optional desktop telemetry defaults off in the EU/EEA/UK
Covers roughly 40 tools/agents with genuinely useful features (waste detection with auto-fix, budget guards, spend-vs-commits correlation)
Free and open source (MIT) with an active community (11k+ GitHub stars, reportedly 150k+ users)

Cons

It's an observability/cost tool, not a coding agent — it doesn't write or edit code itself
Cost estimates rely on a 24-hour-cached pricing feed (LiteLLM), so very new or custom models can lag briefly

Visit Codeburn ↗

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 ↗

Codeburn vs Orca at a glance

	Codeburn	Orca
Editor score	6.5 / 10	8.0 / 10
Pricing model	Open source	Open source
Starting price	Free	Free
Reader upvotes	1	0
Best for	cost-tracking, cli, analytics	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 6.5. 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 Codeburn instead if you need: 100% local — reads existing session files with no account, api keys, or uploads; optional desktop telemetry defaults off in the eu/eea/uk, covers roughly 40 tools/agents with genuinely useful features (waste detection with auto-fix, budget guards, spend-vs-commits correlation).