Orca gives you 27 agents. Each one still reads your repo from scratch.
Orca is the closest analog to Tempest — open source, cross-platform, mobile companion, dozens of CLI agents in isolated worktrees. Tempest adds three things Orca does not: a shared code-knowledge graph that cuts token usage by up to 86% and tool calls by up to 92%, an isolated Postgres branch per session, and OS-level sandboxing via Hephaestus.
| Feature | Tempest | Orca |
|---|---|---|
| Shared knowledge graph | Yes — indexed once, shared across all agents | I did not find an equivalent documented |
| Token efficiency | Up to 86% fewer | I did not find equivalent claims |
| Fewer tool calls | Up to 92% fewer | I did not find equivalent claims |
| Database branches per session | Isolated Postgres per agent | I did not find an equivalent |
| OS-level sandbox | Hephaestus — Job Objects / sandbox-exec / bubblewrap | I did not find equivalent isolation |
| Git worktree isolation | Per agent session | Yes |
| Parallel agents | Unlimited | Yes — 27+ agents supported |
| Any CLI agent | Yes — Claude, Codex, Gemini, Aider, and more | Yes — 27+ including Claude, Codex, Grok, Gemini |
| Windows support | Yes | Yes |
| macOS support | Yes | Yes (ARM64 and Intel) |
| Linux support | Build from source today | Yes |
| Mobile companion | Yes — iOS and Android | Yes — iOS and Android |
| Embedded browser | Live dev server preview | Embedded Chromium with design mode |
| Remote / SSH worktrees | No | Yes |
| GitHub / Linear integration | Stage, commit, push built-in | Native integrations |
| License | Apache 2.0 | MIT |
| Price | Free | Free |
Orca details based on public information at onorca.dev, reviewed 2026-09-10. If anything is wrong or outdated, open an issue on our GitHub and we will fix it.
Two honest recommendations.
Pick Orca
Remote worktrees, embedded Chromium, native integrations.
Pick Orca if remote SSH worktrees, an embedded browser with design mode, and native GitHub / Linear integrations are the features that unblock your team. Orca ships a broader integration surface and a more mature browser story than Tempest today.
Pick Tempest
API bill, data safety, or both.
Every parallel agent in Orca pays the full file-read cost independently — that scales linearly with session count. Tempest indexes your repository once, every agent draws from the shared graph, and the isolated Postgres branch per session plus OS-level sandbox mean a runaway agent cannot touch your other work. Up to 86% fewer tokens, up to 92% fewer tool calls, compounding across every session.
27 agents is impressive. 27 agents that don't step on each other is the actual product.
The one thing Orca doesn't have
Orca is a serious ADE — 27+ agents, remote worktrees, an embedded browser. But every agent session still reads your repository from scratch. Tempest indexes your codebase once and every session draws from that shared graph. That's where the 86% token reduction comes from, and it compounds with every parallel agent.
Isolated Postgres per session
Parallel agents that touch a database corrupt each other's state. Tempest spins up an isolated Postgres branch per session so migrations, seed data, and destructive queries stay in their own lane. Orca does not ship database branching.
OS-level sandbox on every platform
Hephaestus wraps each agent process in Job Objects on Windows, sandbox-exec on macOS, and bubblewrap on Linux. Rogue commands are contained by the OS, not by the app. Orca relies on git worktree isolation alone.