# Do coding agents recommend Orb? > Orb was chosen in 18% of 293 judged usage-based billing sessions, ranking second. Measured with Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Source: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-orb Published: 2026-09-14 Publisher: Armature, Inc. (https://armature.tech) --- > Orb was chosen in 18% of 293 judged usage-based billing sessions, ranking second. It was also raised as a candidate in 218 further sessions without being chosen. This page reports what happened when Claude Code, Codex and Cursor had to solve a problem in usage-based billing inside a realistic codebase. Not what a chat assistant says about Orb. What an agent actually installed. ## The numbers | | | | --- | --- | | Category | Usage-based billing | | Sessions in the category | 293 | | Sessions where Orb was chosen | 53 | | Install share | 18% | | Rank in category | 2 of 11 | | Codebases it won in | 9 | | Raised as a candidate, not chosen | 218 | | Chosen when considered | 20% | | Site | withorb.com | ## By agent The three agents land within 14 points of each other on Orb, which is closer than most products in this experiment manage. | Agent | Sessions | Chose Orb | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Claude Code | 95 | 24 | 25% | | Codex | 99 | 18 | 18% | | Cursor | 99 | 11 | 11% | ## By who was asking Orb performs similarly across the four kinds of buyer, from 15% to 28%. That is unusual: the category leader changed with the persona in 19 of the 24 categories we measured. | Who is asking | Sessions | Chose Orb | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Junior developer | 54 | 15 | 28% | | Senior engineer | 107 | 18 | 17% | | Enterprise team | 132 | 20 | 15% | ## What Orb was up against The full ranking in usage-based billing, from the same sessions: | # | Product | Runs won | Share | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Metronome | 131 | 45% | | 2 | Orb **(this page)** | 53 | 18% | | 3 | Built in-house (no product adopted) | 40 | 14% | | 4 | Lago | 39 | 13% | | 5 | CGRateS | 10 | 3% | | 6 | Stripe Billing | 5 | 2% | | 7 | OpenMeter | 5 | 2% | | 8 | PortaBilling | 3 | 1% | ## What this means A solid second or third position in a category means the agent is genuinely choosing rather than reaching automatically. That is a winnable position, because the inputs it uses can be changed. The fastest gains are usually in the sessions that were nearly won: read them, find the step where the agent moved on, and fix that step. ## Where these numbers come from The 293 sessions in usage-based billing are part of a published set of 6,748, run with real coding agents inside realistic codebases and judged blind. The full method is on one page: [how we measured this](/library/how-we-measured-this). Every usage-based billing run can be replayed on [the board](/leaderboards/usage-based-billing). If you work on Orb: the judge recorded a reason for every session where it was raised and passed over. Those reasons are in the transcripts. ## Common questions ### Do coding agents recommend Orb? Yes. Orb was chosen in 53 of the 293 judged sessions in usage-based billing, a 18% install share, ranking second in its category. ### Does Claude Code recommend Orb? In 24 of the 95 sessions in usage-based billing run with Claude Code, which is 25%. ### Do different coding agents treat Orb differently? Yes, and by a wide margin. Claude Code chose it in 25% of its runs and Cursor in 11%. ### How was this measured? Real coding agents at pinned versions were run in sandboxes inside 74 realistic codebases and asked to solve real tasks. A simulated project owner approved or questioned each recommendation before any code was written, and a judge from a model family that builds none of the agents read every session blind. ### How often is Orb considered but not chosen? It was raised as a candidate in 218 sessions without being chosen, and chosen in 53. That is a 20% conversion from considered to chosen. ## Read next - [How to get picked for usage-based billing by coding agents](https://armature.tech/library/usage-based-billing-coding-agents-playbook) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/usage-based-billing-coding-agents-playbook.md) - [Do coding agents recommend Metronome?](https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-metronome) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-metronome.md) - [Do coding agents recommend Lago?](https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-lago) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-coding-agents-recommend-lago.md) - [Do Claude Code, Codex and Cursor pick the same tools?](https://armature.tech/library/do-claude-code-and-codex-agree) (Markdown: https://armature.tech/library/do-claude-code-and-codex-agree.md) --- Armature helps software products get discovered and used by coding agents. Service: https://armature.tech/discoverability · Results: https://armature.tech/leaderboards/sectors · Contact: contact@armature.tech