ORCA provides an easy-to-learn input structure and thus high accessibility of quantum chemical approaches and workflows.

The ORCA program package is mainly developed by Frank Neese, the department of molecular theory and spectroscopy at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (MPI KoFo), and the FACCTs GmbH which also manages commercial licensing to industry.

The development of ORCA started in 1997, while Frank Neese was on his PostDoc at Stanford University.

In 2016, Frank Neese co-founded the FACCTs GmbH as a spin-off of the Max-Planck-Society to commercially license the ORCA program package to industry.

In contrast to many other commercialized quantum chemistry programs, ORCA remains freely available for academic use.