Stably Orca vs Baton
Detailed side-by-side comparison to help you choose the right tool
Stably Orca
🔴Developerdeveloper-tools
Desktop AI orchestrator by Stably that runs multiple coding agents side-by-side, each in its own isolated git worktree, tracked in one place.
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CustomBaton
🔴Developerdeveloper-tools
A macOS menu bar app that tracks every Claude Code and Codex session on your machine and tells you which AI coding agent is waiting on you right now.
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Stably Orca - Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓Wraps any CLI agent — vendor-neutral so it stays useful as the coding-agent market churns
- ✓Isolated git worktrees per agent make parallel experimentation genuinely safe
- ✓Design Mode collapses the screenshot-plus-CSS-plus-prompt loop into a single click
- ✓SSH remote worktrees let expensive agent runs live on beefier hardware
- ✓Mobile companion means you can monitor and steer agents without being at the desk
Cons
- ✗Desktop-only — no browser or hosted control plane if your primary workstation is locked down
- ✗No MCP support currently — integration is CLI and Orca-CLI-based
- ✗Running multiple frontier agents in parallel multiplies your token bill quickly
- ✗Design Mode requires the Chromium browser inside Orca; it does not observe external browsers
- ✗Newer entrant — configuration and workflow patterns are still solidifying compared to established IDEs
Baton - Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓Free, open source (MIT), no telemetry, nothing leaves the machine
- ✓Sub-second updates via FSEvents; negligible CPU/battery cost
- ✓Handles both Claude Code and Codex in one unified view
- ✓Click-to-jump saves the biggest actual cost of multi-agent work: finding the right window
- ✓One-line install with an isolated venv — clean uninstall too
Cons
- ✗macOS only; no Linux or Windows menu bar equivalent
- ✗Requires Python 3.9+ on the host (3.11+ for Codex automation tracking)
- ✗Only tracks Claude Code and Codex — other coding agents (Cursor, Cline, Aider) not supported
- ✗No push notifications to phone / other devices; menu bar only
- ✗Read-only by design — cannot send input back to sessions
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