Comparing Two Popular Ways to Run Parallel AI Agents
Kilo’s Agent Manager is a built-in feature of Kilo’s VS Code Extension that allows you to run multiple coding agents in parallel without conflict - which means you can have multiple agents work on different tasks at the same time, or run the same task across multiple different AI models and compare their work.
Then, you can merge any of the changes that you want to keep from different agents without merge conflicts.
Orca is a standalone desktop app that has been trending on GitHub recently for a similar functionality. Both use git worktrees to isolate each agent’s changes. Past that, they’re built on slightly different assumptions about what developers actually want.
Standalone app vs. VS Code native #
Orca is its own desktop application, with its own editor, terminal, and embedded browser window. It works with other CLI agents: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Devin - even Kilo. That’s one of the main selling points: one dashboard if you’re paying for multiple agent subscriptions and want to compare them.
The cost is that it’s a second IDE. You leave VS Code (or whatever you use) to work in Orca, then presumably go back to your actual editor for anything else.
Kilo’s Agent Manager is a panel inside the Kilo VS Code extension. It runs multiple Kilo Agents, and each can use any AI model. So you can use all of the Claude, Gemini, GPT, and open-weights models across multiple different Kilo agents, and there’s nothing new to install or context-switch into. Worktrees, terminals, and diffs all live where you already work.
If you’re running a stack of different agent tools side by side, Orca’s agent agnosticism might matter here. If you’re already working in VS Code, it might not.
Worktree management #
Both tools spin up an isolated worktree per task and let you import existing branches or PRs. Orca adds SSH worktrees for running agents on a remote machine, multi-repo project groups, and a start-from picker that can branch off a specific commit or remote ref instead of only your current branch.
Kilo’s additions go a different direction. Multi-version mode runs the same prompt across up to four worktrees, optionally with different models, so you can compare outputs directly instead of guessing. Sections let you group worktrees into color-coded folders, which helps once you have more than a few running at once. Setup and run scripts let a new worktree install dependencies, copy env files, and start a dev server on its own port automatically.
Review tooling #
This is the biggest gap between the two. Orca lets you comment on diff lines and send them back to the agent, and it shows which agent produced which changes.
Kilo has a live diff panel with an “Apply to local” button that copies worktree changes onto your parent branch, complete with conflict resolution. You can drag a file header from the diff panel into chat to give the agent context. There’s an AI /review
slash command, a CI-integrated kilo review
, and PR status badges that update automatically based on check and review state. Landing the work has three explicit paths: apply locally, merge directly, or open a PR.
Which one to use #
If you’re running multiple agent tools across different subscriptions and want one place to track all of them, that’s Orca.
If you’re using VS Code and want the full loop with one tool: spin up a worktree, review the diff, run the app, merge or open a PR, Agent Manager covers more of that today. The review pipeline and multi-version mode are the two features that matter most here: they’re the difference between an agent producing changes and you actually being able to trust and ship them.