Orca vs Sunk Cost (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?
Both are popular terminal coding agents. Here is how Orca and Sunk Cost stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.
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
Sunk Cost
How long until a local LLM rig pays for itself?
6.5 /10
Pricing: Free
Pros
- Free, no signup, no cookies or IP logging
- Grounds the "buy hardware and run locally" debate in real numbers: hardware price, power draw and token throughput
- Includes a model capability leaderboard and hardware pricing database for context
Cons
- A single-purpose calculator, not an actual coding agent or MCP tool
- Estimates depend on self-reported hardware/pricing data and usage assumptions
Orca vs Sunk Cost at a glance
| Orca | Sunk Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Editor score | 8.0 / 10 | 6.5 / 10 |
| Pricing model | Open source | Free |
| Starting price | Free | Free |
| Reader upvotes | 0 | 0 |
| Best for | ade, parallel-agents, claude-code | local-llm, cost-calculator, hardware |
| 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 Sunk Cost instead if you need: free, no signup, no cookies or ip logging, grounds the "buy hardware and run locally" debate in real numbers: hardware price, power draw and token throughput.
Other terminal coding agents to consider
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