Kilo Code Hits 18,881 Stars and 1.5M+ Developers — Most Popular Open-Source Coding Agent Ships Orchestrator Mode With Specialist Sub-Agents

GitHub·high signal

Kilo (formerly forked from Cline/Roo Code) has become the #1 open-source coding agent on OpenRouter, processing 25T+ tokens across 1.5M+ developers with support for VS Code, JetBrains, CLI, mobile, and Slack. The standout Orchestrator mode decomposes complex tasks into subtasks routed to specialist sub-agents — Architect for planning, Coder for implementation, Debugger for testing — with session state persisting across all environments. At 18,881 GitHub stars, Kilo charges zero markup on API keys (BYO pricing from Anthropic/OpenAI/Google), positioning it as the open alternative to proprietary coding assistants.