Task Machine vs Orca

Orca organizes coding agents in worktrees with chat, terminals and code review. Task Machine organizes shared Tasks, Goals and recurring work with plans and an Inbox for decisions.

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Task Machine and Orca, point by point

Built from each company's public pages. Every answer links to its source and shows when we last checked it. The oldest check on this page was November 13, 2026.

Task Machine and Orca compared, with the source and check date of each answer
What you compare Task Machine Orca
Goals Task Machine Yes

Give a Goal an agent lead and link Metrics, such as weekly signups or open pipeline value. The lead sees each Metric's latest value and trend, reviews the Goal on its own when a number or the linked work changes and on a schedule, and proposes what is missing for you to approve.

taskmachine.io/docs/goals
Orca Partly

Codex chats display an active goal, its state and controls to pause or resume it. Its docs do not describe an owner tracking a measurable target against that goal.

orca.dev/…/native-chat
Leads Task Machine Yes

Goals, Projects and Teams each have a lead, a person or an agent. A Goal lead checks that the work can still reach the outcome. A Project lead reviews its Tasks against the Goals that direct it and asks you to settle conflicts between them. A Team lead triages the queue. Every gap becomes a proposal you approve.

Orca Partly

Experimental orchestration gives a coordinator supervised workers, completion messages and blocking questions. Its docs describe coordination within a Run rather than a standing project, goal or team lead role.

orca.dev/…/orchestration
Tasks Task Machine Yes

Every job is a Task that a person or an agent owns. The Task keeps its plan, discussion, decisions, runs and history together, so you can steer one job in detail without reading a chat log, and people and agents hand work to each other on the same record.

taskmachine.io/docs/tasks
Orca Partly

Orca displays external issues and experimental orchestration Tasks with specs, dependencies, status and worker attempts. Its docs do not establish the same work record assignable to either a person or an agent.

Recurring work Task Machine Yes

Start a Task or Workflow once, on a schedule in your timezone, or when a service event arrives, such as a paid invoice or a pull request review. A recurring job keeps one stable root Task and gives each occurrence its own status and history, so repeated work does not flood your board.

Orca Partly

Automations run prompts on hourly, daily, weekly, cron or RRULE schedules, with timezones and run history. Its docs do not describe incoming event or webhook triggers for those automations.

orca.dev/…/automations
Workflows Task Machine Yes

A Workflow repeats your steps in the same order every time, with branches, human questions and approvals, and verifier checks that judge each result against its requirements and send weak work back with feedback. Every run keeps a step-by-step history you can read afterwards.

taskmachine.io/docs/workflow-builder
Orca Partly

Experimental orchestration supports task dependencies and decision gates that block tasks. Its docs do not describe a saved multi-step process that repeats unchanged, and the orchestration panel and switch are temporarily unavailable.

orca.dev/…/orchestration
Autonomy Task Machine Yes

Consequential decisions land in your Inbox with their context. You set what each agent may do on its own: every action is either Ask first or Automatic, per agent, and you can change that whenever the work or the stakes change.

Orca Yes

Choose Manual, Auto or Yolo permissions for new agent sessions. Structured chat presents approval cards, alerts you when input is needed and retains answered cards as receipts.

Learned autonomy Task Machine Yes

Task Machine studies the approvals and corrections you already make. When an agent does well it proposes giving it more freedom, and when it needs closer supervision it proposes tighter review, each with the evidence. A short lucky streak is not enough, and nothing changes until you accept.

Orca Not published

Its docs describe permission presets and approval receipts, but do not describe Orca proposing permission changes from your approval history.

Memory Task Machine Yes

Agents keep lessons from your corrections, such as an accepted example or a mistake to avoid, and carry the relevant notes into later work. Memory is kept per agent, project, goal, team and workspace, and you can read, correct and restore any note.

taskmachine.io/docs/memories
Orca Partly

Orca respects agent-owned CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md files and lets you edit them inline. Its docs do not describe Orca saving lessons from corrections for later runs.

orca.dev/…/hooks-memory
Planning Task Machine Yes

Plan in Chat with your agents, and the plan becomes Tasks or Library documents instead of staying in a chat log. Before an agent starts, you review its plan and the acceptance criteria its work will be judged against.

taskmachine.io/docs/planning-in-chat
Orca Yes

Claude and Codex structured chats have Plan mode. Their plan updates render as inline checklists, with the latest plan in a progress panel above the composer.

orca.dev/…/native-chat
Intake Task Machine Yes

Send work in over HTTP with a project token. It lands in the project as a Task, or in your Inbox as a proposal first. A team lead agent triages it to the right owner and asks you only when the decision is yours.

Orca Yes

You can launch an agent from a Linear issue, passing its description, comments, images and sub-issues into the prompt. This routes an external issue through a workspace rather than a general email intake address.

orca.dev/…/linear
Connectors Task Machine Yes

Install services from a catalog as MCP servers, APIs or command-line tools, or add your own custom Connector for any of the three. Events Connectors receive webhooks from a service, such as a paid invoice, and start Workflows or wake a waiting Task.

taskmachine.io/docs/connectors
Orca Partly

Orca connects issue providers and lets you register Model Context Protocol servers for compatible agents. Its docs do not describe event or webhook triggers alongside those connections.

Models Task Machine Yes

Auto is the default. For each stage of the work it chooses a model from the task, current model capabilities, pricing and your applicable budgets, and you can fix a specific model on an agent when you want to.

taskmachine.io/docs/agents
Orca Partly

You choose models and effort in chat or set model overrides for individual workers. Its docs do not describe Orca automatically selecting a model for each task or step.

Cloud or your own computer Task Machine Yes

Run agents in Managed Cloud with nothing to install, or connect a Local Worker, a computer you control, for local files, tools and accounts. You choose where each agent runs.

Orca Partly

Run locally, on SSH hosts or on a self-hosted Orca server. Experimental Cloud VM recipes use your own provider account. Orca says it does not sell managed VPS hosting, so these are customer-controlled compute options.

orca.dev/docs/ways-to-run
Your own subscription Task Machine Yes

Sign in to your ChatGPT (Codex), Claude or GitHub Copilot subscription on a Local Worker, and the agents there use it instead of Task Machine's models.

Orca Yes

Orca runs existing agent subscriptions side by side, including Claude Code and Codex. You bring the subscriptions rather than buying model usage from Orca.

orca.dev
Pricing Task Machine Yes

Usage based. From $29 a month before tax, the whole payment becomes usage that your workspace shares across people and agents, with no base fee and no trial. Larger monthly amounts lower the AI and Cloud rates.

taskmachine.io/pricing
Orca Partly

Orca is free and open source under the MIT License, rather than a usage or credit plan. Agent subscriptions and any cloud provider charges are separate costs you supply.

Correctness Task Machine Yes

Every Task carries acceptance requirements, and each one gets a Pass, Fail or Uncertain check against the delivered work before a person reviews it. Workflow steps can add a verifier check that sends failed work back with feedback. You review the plan first, so the criteria exist before work starts.

Orca Yes

Repository pre-commit hooks run normally, with failures shown inline. Hosted checks expose failed jobs, and Fix broken checks passes their names and links to an agent for repair.

For software work

Task Machine and Orca compared, with the source and check date of each answer
What you compare Task Machine Orca
Code review rules Task Machine Yes

Internal code review checks completed changes against the enabled rules of your repository. Rule discovery reads the repository and proposes rules, each screened against violating and valid examples first, and Task Machine suggests turning off a rule that agents keep dismissing.

taskmachine.io/docs/repositories
Orca Partly

Orca documents a human diff review for necessity, minimal changes and consistency, then batches comments for agent revision. Its docs do not establish automatic code review against configured repository rules.

Adversarial review Task Machine Yes

When an approved plan has high sensitivity or a Critical review level, the change also gets an adversarial review. Two independent reviewers examine the changed files together for defects such as a broken caller or a duplicate charge on retry. Findings keep their reproduction steps, and a skipped or failed review never counts as a pass.

taskmachine.io/docs/task-reviews
Orca Not published

Its docs describe parallel agents and human diff review, but do not describe an independent second review of risky changes.

Risk rating Task Machine Yes

Before final review, Merge risk rates the exact revision Low, Moderate or High, with notes on alignment, impact, verification, rollback cost and error detection, plus file references. It informs your decision and never merges for you.

taskmachine.io/docs/pull-requests
Orca Not published

Its docs show hosted check results, review state and merge controls, but do not describe a change risk rating before merge.

Pull requests Task Machine Yes

Agents deliver against the exact reported revision, address review feedback and update the branch under your repository rules. Task Machine records its own approval of the exact commit before an agent may merge.

taskmachine.io/docs/pull-requests
Orca Yes

Orca drafts pull request details from the diff and sends failing checks or pull request review comments back to an agent to fix. Hosted reviews and comment threads are accessible inside the app.

A fact we cannot find or cannot check is left out, and prices can change after the date shown. Task Machine publishes this comparison and is an interested party. Orca is named only to identify it, and there is no relationship between the two companies. Has something changed? Tell us.

Who each one suits

Orca suits you if you want to run coding agents in parallel worktrees, switch between chat and terminals, and review diffs in the same app using subscriptions you already have.

Task Machine suits you if you want people and agents to own shared Tasks, connect Goals to Metrics and review plans and consequential decisions in the Inbox.

You may stay with Orca if the job is hands-on coding and you want its free, MIT-licensed source and customer-controlled compute. You can keep that coding environment while using Task Machine for other work.

Coordinate code or recurring company work

Orca brings external issues into coding workspaces. For example, launching an agent from a Linear issue includes its description, comments and images in the prompt. Scheduled automations can run maintenance prompts without you opening a worktree by hand.

Orca also documents experimental orchestration with a coordinator, worker Tasks, dependencies and decision gates. Its documentation says the orchestration panel and switch are temporarily unavailable. Treat the documented command-line process separately from an available desktop workflow builder.

Task Machine gives each job a Task with an owner, plan, discussion and history. Workflows repeat defined steps, branches and checks, while Goals connect an outcome to Metrics and a lead who reviews progress.

Review work where it happens

In Orca, Plan mode and inline checklists let you work through a coding plan. You can choose agent permission modes, answer approval cards and send line-level diff comments back for revision. Repository hooks and hosted checks provide concrete checks on the code.

Task Machine asks you to review the plan and acceptance criteria before execution. Its review checks judge the delivered work against those requirements, and consequential decisions arrive in the Inbox.

What the prices cover

Orca is free and open source under the MIT License. You supply agent subscriptions and compute. Its remote options use your machines or cloud accounts, and you pay the cloud provider yourself.

Task Machine is usage based, from $29 a month before tax, with no base fee and the whole payment becoming usage shared by the workspace. You keep 100% of your revenue, Task Machine takes no cut and never takes custody of your accounts.

Common questions

Can Orca use subscriptions I already pay for?
Yes. It runs agent subscriptions such as Claude Code and Codex side by side.

Does Orca run away from my laptop?
Yes. It supports SSH hosts and self-hosted Orca servers, plus experimental Cloud VM recipes. These use machines and provider accounts you control, not Orca-managed hosting.

Can agents address pull request feedback in Orca?
Yes. Orca sends review comments and failing checks back to an agent to fix. Task Machine also supports pull request work, with review feedback and approval recorded against the exact revision.