Control Center vs Orca.
Orca is the closest tool to Control Center here: both are MIT-licensed, ship desktop on all three platforms plus phone companions, isolate every task in a real worktree, and review and merge pull requests in-app. They diverge on scope — Orca is an agent IDE, Control Center is the operation deck around it: tickets with Linear sync, DAG pipelines, meetings and calendar, memory, guardrails and human multiplayer on a server that owns the state.
Orca(opens Orca in a new tab)Starts at Free · open source
Checked against Orca’s public site · August 2026
Side by side.
✓ yes · ≈ partial — hover or focus a ≈ for the reason · — not offered.
| Capability | Control Center | Orca |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Free · self-hosted | Free · open source |
| Free & open source | Yes | Yes |
| Native desktop · mac / win / linux | Yes | Yes |
| Phone companion | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted headless server | Yes | Partial — “Self-hosted Orca servers” are remote compute an agent runs on, not a server your clients read state from — the desktop stays the source of truth. |
| Parallel worktree isolation | Yes | Yes |
| In-app PR review & merge | Yes | Yes |
| Pipelines & scheduled triggers | Yes | Partial — Scheduled automations across local and remote hosts, rather than a DAG of dependent steps. |
| Meetings & calendar | Yes | Not offered |
| Multi-user teams | Yes | Not offered |
How Orca’s partial cells read: Review is complete on GitHub (inline comments, checks, stacked PRs with atomic stack merge and merge-queue support) and thinner on GitLab; “self-hosted Orca servers” are remote compute targets agents run on, not a server your clients read state from; automations are scheduled runs, not DAG pipelines; no human multiplayer, tickets or meetings.
Prices are each vendor’s own list price to use the tool. Every option here bills your model provider separately — you bring your own keys or subscription.
Where Control Center pulls ahead
Everything that is not the IDE: Linear-synced tickets that dispatch straight into worktrees, resumable DAG pipelines instead of scheduled prompts, on-device meeting capture and calendar, role-gated memory and a code graph, unified action guardrails with a per-space autonomy dial, and human multiplayer with presence — over one cc_server that holds the state, so desktop, web and phone all see the same operation rather than each desktop holding its own.
Where Orca pulls ahead
You want a free, cross-platform agent IDE with a phone companion, browser-per-task isolation and the most complete pull-request surface in this table — without tickets, meetings or an operation around it.
Choosing between them.
What is the difference between Control Center and Orca?
Orca is the closest tool to Control Center here: both are MIT-licensed, ship desktop on all three platforms plus phone companions, isolate every task in a real worktree, and review and merge pull requests in-app. They diverge on scope — Orca is an agent IDE, Control Center is the operation deck around it: tickets with Linear sync, DAG pipelines, meetings and calendar, memory, guardrails and human multiplayer on a server that owns the state.
When should I choose Orca over Control Center?
You want a free, cross-platform agent IDE with a phone companion, browser-per-task isolation and the most complete pull-request surface in this table — without tickets, meetings or an operation around it. (Review is complete on GitHub (inline comments, checks, stacked PRs with atomic stack merge and merge-queue support) and thinner on GitLab; “self-hosted Orca servers” are remote compute targets agents run on, not a server your clients read state from; automations are scheduled runs, not DAG pipelines; no human multiplayer, tickets or meetings.)
When should I choose Control Center over Orca?
Everything that is not the IDE: Linear-synced tickets that dispatch straight into worktrees, resumable DAG pipelines instead of scheduled prompts, on-device meeting capture and calendar, role-gated memory and a code graph, unified action guardrails with a per-space autonomy dial, and human multiplayer with presence — over one cc_server that holds the state, so desktop, web and phone all see the same operation rather than each desktop holding its own.
How much does Orca cost compared to Control Center?
Starting price — Orca: Free · open source. Control Center: Free · self-hosted. Prices are each vendor’s own list price to use the tool. Every option here bills your model provider separately — you bring your own keys or subscription.
See every tool on one grid on the full comparison page, or download Control Center and feel it.