Zapier connects more than 8,000 apps and now runs AI agents on top of its automation. Orkeste is narrower and agent-first: fewer connectors, but approvals enforced by the platform, swarms of agents and an EU-only model setting.
In Zapier Agents, asking for confirmation is a sentence you write in the instructions. In Orkeste, each agent's approval rules are settings: the action waits in Validations with the full draft, and nothing goes out until someone approves it.
A swarm runs agents in sequence, in parallel, on conditions or under a manager agent that splits the request into tasks and writes the final answer.
Plans include monthly credits for the whole account, from free to €39.99 for 25,000 credits, instead of a separate meter for agents and for automation.
Zapier Agents is the AI agent product of Zapier, the automation platform known for Zaps. You create specialised agents with help from Zapier Copilot, give them knowledge such as FAQs, documents and links, and let them act across more than 8,000 connected apps, on command or on events such as a form submission or a new question in a Slack channel.
Reach. No agent platform connects to as many apps, and Zaps handle the deterministic steps around an agent. Agents can also work on the web through a Chrome extension. If your process touches tools that no other platform supports, Zapier is often the only option.
Orkeste is built around the moment an agent is about to act. Each agent has approval rules; a pending email, CRM update or Zendesk reply waits in one Validations queue with its full draft. Swarms put several agents on one job. A test tab runs saved cases before you change an agent, and every change is kept as a version you can restore. One setting keeps model calls on EU-hosted models.
Use Zapier when reach is the problem: many apps, data moving between them. Use Orkeste when the risk is the agent's action: emails, records and replies that a person should see before they go out.
For agents whose actions need a person's approval in mainstream B2B tools, yes. For automation across thousands of apps, Zapier covers far more ground, and many teams keep it for that.
Differently. Zapier documents approval as an instruction in the agent's prompt, or as a Human in the Loop step in a Zap. Orkeste sends the actions you choose to a Validations queue, where you edit, approve or reject the draft.
Orkeste plans include a monthly credit allowance: Free with 500 credits, Starter at €9.99 with 5,000, Pro at €39.99 with 25,000 and Business on quote. A run uses from 2 credits with Claude Haiku 5.5 to 235 with Claude Fable 5.1. Zapier bills Agents in activities and Zaps in tasks, each with a free tier; check zapier.com/pricing for current figures.
Yes. A Zap can start an Orkeste agent through a webhook trigger authenticated with a Bearer secret, and an Orkeste agent can send each run's result to a Zapier webhook.