Written by the team building Shepherd. Competitor capabilities are based on the official sources linked below, checked September 8, 2026; this is a documentation comparison, not a hands-on benchmark.
The right Orca alternative depends on which part of your development environment you want to change. You may want a different workspace, a server-side agent runtime, mobile access, or simply fewer tools to configure. Start there before comparing a long list of features.
This article refers to Orca at onorca.dev, the agent development environment, rather than other products named Orca. Its official overview includes worktrees, reviews, SSH workspaces, and mobile companions. Those capabilities already overlap with several alternatives; their mere presence is not a differentiator.
A shortlist by working style
| Candidate | A reason to evaluate it | A responsibility to investigate |
|---|---|---|
| Shepherd | A Mac workspace centered on persistent agent terminals | How its workspace and review flow fit your daily tasks |
| Paseo | Access to agent work across desktop, mobile, and web | Where its daemon and provider tools will run |
| Herdr | Keeping agent terminals organized on the execution host | How you connect and handle your chosen agents |
| Ghostty + tmux + SSH | Independently configured terminal tools | Session naming, remote access, and separate review tools |
Shepherd: keep the terminal close to the review
Shepherd combines terminal panes, persistent sessions, and agent status with in-workspace file and review surfaces. Evaluate it if navigating between a running task and its result is the friction you want to remove. Its current public download targets Apple silicon Macs; the iOS app is listed as coming soon.
Paseo: evaluate the clients you actually use
Paseo is another candidate for cross-device agent management. A useful trial spans your real devices: start a task at the desk, inspect it from another client, and continue at the desk. Include initial setup and finding the right project in your comparison, not just sending a message once connected.
Herdr: organize work where it runs
Herdr’s quick start describes a background session containing workspaces, tabs, and agent panes. This is a useful direction when the server-side terminal environment is what you want to standardize. Compare the tools you need around that environment to complete a review and preview a remote service.
Ghostty and tmux: assemble the environment
Ghostty supplies a terminal application; tmux supplies detachable sessions. Bring your own SSH, editor, and review workflow. Consider this when independent components and existing configuration are valuable to you.
Compare isolation before adding agents
Choose a repository and two small, unrelated changes. Write down which directory and branch each agent will edit before starting either task. Separate terminal panes do not themselves isolate files. A worktree can separate the checkout, but you still need to plan shared resources such as development ports and databases.
Check how each candidate makes the active directory and branch visible. Then inspect the two diffs and decide whether it is easy to identify which task produced which change. This exercise gives the comparison a practical purpose beyond counting supported agents.
Decide what must survive a disconnect
List the state you care about: the process, terminal output, pane arrangement, agent conversation, and uncommitted files. Evaluate them separately. A saved conversation does not prove that the original shell is still alive, and a running shell does not prove that a new client will find the right conversation.
Choose the alternative that makes your essential state easiest to understand.
Plan the first project you move
Use a new branch or a completed task as the boundary for trying another workspace. Preserve uncommitted changes and leave existing agent processes under their current owner. A shared repository path does not establish that another product can attach to the same session or import its history.
Choose one representative project, complete a change through review, and only then decide whether to move the next project. For a narrower examination of the two desktop workspaces, read Shepherd vs Orca. If composing a terminal stack is appealing, read Ghostty + tmux vs Shepherd.
Your next workspace
Put it to work.
Try Shepherd on an Apple silicon Mac. The iOS app is currently listed as coming soon.
Get Shepherd for Mac