Last verified
Run a team of 16 specialist AI agents on your desktop; the Commander delegates work while your files, keys, and memory stay local.
Orkas handles weekly sales briefs, content drafts, and client reports on a schedule. Set up automations once in a project that carries your brand voice, product facts, and preferences, and agents deliver formatted outputs for your review every time without re-briefing.
If you only need a single ad-hoc task occasionally, the project setup and scheduling overhead is more than a one-shot conversation with a standalone model.
ContentWriter, ImageStudio, and VideoStudio share a project's memory of your brand voice and previous content, so weekly posts, product launch kits, and newsletters stay consistent. Output files including video and PowerPoint decks come back as reviewable deliverables before publication.
Teams that need AI assistance for only one step, such as caption writing, will get faster results from a direct API call than from setting up a full multi-agent project.
Orkas runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, OpenClaw, and Hermes-Agent as part of the same Commander-directed project alongside research and content specialists. A single instruction can fix a bug, write the changelog entry, and draft the release announcement in sequence.
If the work is purely coding and you are satisfied with Claude Code or Codex in your terminal or IDE, adding a multi-agent coordination layer is unnecessary overhead.
Five dedicated e-commerce agents handle product research, listing writing, review analysis, sales analysis, and catalog operations. Weekly briefs can be scheduled as automations, with review reply drafts queued for your approval before any action is taken on a connected store.
If your e-commerce tool already provides native AI features for your primary workflows, evaluate whether Orkas's agent depth justifies a separate desktop tool alongside it.
Running a small business or solo practice means either paying for a growing stack of specialised SaaS tools, each with its own login, export, and data silo, or cycling through a single general-purpose chat model and manually stitching outputs together across sessions. Neither approach keeps work organized across days, runs routine tasks automatically, or lets agents and people share a live project with shared context.
The deeper pain is repetition. Weekly content cycles, monthly client reports, recurring store operations, and regular codebase maintenance all require the same setup conversation every time. A chat model with no project memory means briefing from scratch on Monday, again on Thursday, and again the following week.
The Commander agent takes a goal, plans the steps, and assigns each part to the most appropriate specialist. It handles analysis, writing, research, and file work itself when no specialist is a better fit, and runs the 16 built-in specialists alongside external CLI tools like Claude Code and Codex when the task calls for it.
Agents cover research (DeepResearcher), content writing (ContentWriter), video (VideoStudio), audio (VoiceStudio), slide decks (PptMaker), UI design (UIDesigner), software development (ProductDeveloper), office documents (OfficeWorker), SEO audits (SeoGeoAgent), stock analysis (StockAnalyser), and five e-commerce agents for product research, listings, reviews, sales analysis, and catalog operations.
A project holds the goal, rules, memory, and files for a business or workflow. Every conversation picks up from the last, so agents carry your brand voice, product facts, and preferences without re-briefing. Memory is stored locally and can be reviewed or edited at any time in the Memory panel.
Any task can run on a repeat schedule: hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. Automations run on your machine, and since version 1.9, each automation catches up its most recent missed run within 12 hours when the device wakes. Recurring tasks like weekly content drafts, order reviews, or client briefs run without manual triggering.
Orkas uses the built-in Orkas model out of the box (500 free credits on sign-up) or connects to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM, Qwen, MiniMax, Doubao, or any local OpenAI-compatible endpoint. External CLI agents including Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, OpenClaw, and Hermes-Agent plug in as first-class team members alongside the built-in specialists.
Files, conversations, knowledge bases, and custom agent definitions stay on your disk by default. API keys are encrypted locally and excluded from cloud sync. Cloud sync is optional in the packaged app; with your own provider keys, model calls go directly from your machine to the provider, not through Orkas servers.
Both tools use a chat interface for AI assistance, but they serve different models of work. ChatGPT is a hosted web and mobile assistant that handles one conversation at a time with a single general model; Orkas is a local-first desktop app where a Commander routes different parts of a goal to 16 specialist agents working together.
| Feature | Orkas | ChatGPT (Plus/Teams) |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT open source | Proprietary |
| Data location | Local by default | OpenAI servers |
| Specialists | 16 built-in plus Commander | Single general model |
| Project memory | Per-project, stored locally | Limited conversation memory |
| Scheduled automations | Yes, hourly to monthly | No |
| Model choice | Any provider or local endpoint | OpenAI models only |
| Pricing | Free app; bring-your-own-key billing | $20/month (Plus) per seat |
Orkas is the stronger choice when you need specialist output for video, research, or e-commerce work, recurring automations, or a project that carries full context across days without re-briefing. The VideoStudio, DeepResearcher, and e-commerce agents operate with dedicated tooling that a general chat model does not match for that type of work.
ChatGPT is still the right fit when you want a single conversational assistant with no local setup, when you work mostly on a mobile device, or when you need web search integrated into a one-off response.
Microsoft Copilot is embedded in Microsoft 365 and Windows, built for users who live in Word, Excel, Teams, and Outlook. It is a deep Microsoft integration, not a standalone multi-agent coordinator.
| Feature | Orkas | Microsoft Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT open source | Proprietary |
| Data location | Local by default | Microsoft cloud |
| Integration target | Any tool via connectors | Microsoft 365 apps |
| Agent approach | 16 specialists plus Commander | Single model per Microsoft app |
| Pricing | Free app | $30/user/month (M365 Copilot) |
Orkas fits teams who want a model-agnostic local workflow across tools beyond Microsoft's ecosystem: Shopify, Notion, Stripe, Google Workspace, and Slack all connect, and agents work with local files without uploading them to a cloud tenant. The MIT license is an advantage if your organization audits what AI tools access your data.
Copilot is the better fit when your organization is standardized on Microsoft 365, data governance requires staying in the Microsoft cloud, and the primary use case is document summarization and email drafting inside those apps.
Download the free macOS or Windows installer from GitHub Releases: https://github.com/Orkas-AI/Orkas/releases/latestThe desktop app is free to download and comes with 500 credits for the built-in Orkas model. Using your own OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, or other provider keys is free from Orkas's side; you pay your provider's rates directly. Paid plans add monthly credits, multi-device sync, more shared projects, and additional cloud storage.
By default, files, conversations, knowledge bases, and custom agent definitions stay on your machine. API keys are encrypted locally and excluded from cloud sync. With your own provider keys, requests go directly from your device to the provider. Cloud sync is an opt-in feature in the packaged app and does not run by default.
Linux support is via source build only; there is no packaged Linux installer. Requirements are Node 22.12 or later, glibc 2.34 or higher, and a C/C++ build toolchain. Alpine and musl-based distributions are not supported. Clone the repo and run ./run.sh; first launch downloads the embedding model, Whisper runtime, and FFmpeg automatically.
Claude Code and Codex are coding-focused agents that work on code in your terminal or IDE. Orkas is a multi-agent coordinator: the Commander routes different parts of a goal to specialists, and Claude Code or Codex can be one of those specialists inside the same Orkas project. A single task in Orkas can fix a bug via Claude Code, draft the changelog, and create the release post all in sequence.
The built-in Orkas model is included out of the box and requires no API key to start. You can also connect OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi (Moonshot), GLM, Qwen, MiniMax, Doubao, and any local OpenAI-compatible endpoint. All agents share the same model setting, so switching providers applies to the whole team at once.
Multi-agent simulation engine that predicts real-world outcomes
Alternative to
HubSpot Sales Hub
AI agents for WhatsApp sales, fully audited, no per-user pricing
Open-source tools that work instantly, no signup required
Alternative to
Attio
Open source agentic CRM with a durable research agent
Alternative to
Muse
Self-hosted AI assistant for WhatsApp, Telegram, and more
Alternative to
Superhuman
AI email assistant that drafts replies and clears your inbox
Sponsors
Alternative toSuperhuman
AI email assistant that drafts replies and clears your inbox
Alternative to
Grok Bot
AI teammates you own: your keys, your model, your machine.
Live monitoring on LinkedIn, X, Reddit & more. Agentic social listening for startups.
The projects we add and every new guide. Free, unsubscribe any time.
Claude Code to 
OpenCode
Jira to 
Windshift
Notion to 
AppFlowy
Slack to 
Mattermost
Linear to 
GitLab
Wispr Flow to 
Handy
Arc to 
Zen Browser
CapCut to 
Concat
Grok Bot to 
rakazo
Superhuman to 
Inbox Zero
Airtable to 
AITable
Muse to 
OpenClaw
Railway to 
Coolify
GitHub Copilot to 
Cline
Datadog to 
Netdata
Microsoft Teams to 
Rocket.ChatConfluence to 
Docmost
Pinecone to 
Qdrant
Zapier to 
n8n
Devin AI to 
OpenHands
Firebase to 
Supabase
1Password to 
KeePassXC
Contentful to 
Strapi
Adobe Premiere Pro to 
Shotcut
