Laser sources in the visible region have received much attention because of their wide application in projector technology, color display, medical treatment and large data storage [[1], [2], [3]]. Besides, visible laser at specific wavelengths could be very crucial for some applications. For example, orange laser emissions at about 606 nm were needed for quantum information experiments [4,5]. Materials doped with Pr3+ Dy3+, Sm3+, Eu3+ and Er3+ can all produce visible laser emission. Among these rare earth (RE) ions, Pr3+ is best known for producing visible emissions [[6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]]. The output powers of the orange Pr3+-doped lasers have been improved as the output power increment of blue LD [[13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]]. Sm3+-doped crystals with the visible emissions are close to those of Pr3+-doped crystals. It was worth mentioning that the main absorption peaks of the Sm:YLF and Sm:LLF crystals were 401 nm and 479 nm in the visible region, and there was no absorption peaks in the orange spectral region [20,21], which was very favorable for obtaining orange laser emissions compared to Pr3+-doped crystals. In addition, the 5d-levels energetic position of Sm3+ is relatively higher than Pr3+ and the upper state radiative lifetime of Sm3+ (4G5/2, millisecond order) is longer than that of Pr3+ (3P0, microsecond order). Therefore, Sm3+-doped crystals are considered promising active medium for producing orange laser due to the strong emission on the 4G5/2 → 6H7/2 transition. Orange laser emissions have a wide range of applications in high-density optical storage devices, plasma displays, radiation shielding, marine communications, artificial lighting, photodynamic therapy and surgery and radiation dosimetry [[22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27]]. The growth, energy transfer and the spectral characteristics of the Sm3+-doped crystals have been studied extensively [[28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36]]. The laser emissions of the Sm3+-doped crystals were also realized. For example, the first laser operating at 593 nm and in the Sm:LiTbF4 crystal was realize in 1979 by Kazakov et al. [37]. H. Jenssen achieved a CW Sm:LiTbF4 laser at 605 nm with a maximum output power of 190 mW and a slope efficiency of 20 % [38]. In the same configuration, the laser operation was also obtained at 651 nm with a maximum output power of 28 mW and a slope efficiency of 13 % by A. Kamninskii [39]. D. Marzahl et al. reported orange laser emission at 606 nm in the Sm:LLF crystal with a maximum output power of 86 mW and a slope efficiency of 15 % [36]. The Sm:YLF [20] and Sm:LLF [21] crystals have polarized spectral characteristics, weak thermal effects and high visible luminescent quantum efficiency, which make them excellent gain media for orange OPDW laser emission. Fig. 1 (a) and (b) show the polarized emission cross-sections of the Sm:YLF and Sm:LLF crystals in the orange spectral region on the 4G5/2 → 6H7/2 transition, respectively, which was calculated by the Füchtbauer–Ladenburg Equation [40]. As shown in Fig. 1(a), the strongest emission peak of the Sm:YLF crystal is 605.0 in the π-polarization. Besides, there are also two emission peaks at 593.4 and 597.3 nm in the π-polarization and three emission peaks at 592.7, 597.5 and 604.3 nm in the σ-polarization. It can be seen in Fig. 1(b) that the Sm:LLF crystal has three (594.1, 597.9 and 605.6 nm) and three (592.7, 598.0 and 605.5 nm) emission peaks in the π- and σ-polarizations, respectively. Therefore, the Sm:YLF and Sm:LLF crystals can offer more orange laser emissions on the 4G5/2 → 6H7/2 transition.The CW OPDW laser emissions have special applications such as radar [41], medical treatment [42], holography [43,44], laser interferometry [45], precision spectroscopy [46] and metrology [47]. Besides, OPDW lasers are urgently needed to generate terahertz waves by difference-frequency mixing [48] and UV lasers [49] by using frequency-doubling techniques. These dual-wavelength lasers usually include the intracavity loss elements such as specially coated output couplers [50] and etalons [[51], [52], [53]] to balance the gains and losses between the two laser wavelengths. However, the output power ratio between the two transition lines of these OPDW visible lasers could not be adjusted. To solve this problem, we designed two laser cavities. The first method was to use a linear cavity and compound gain medium, which could make the output power ratio of the OPDW orange laser had a large tuning range. The second method was to use the compound cavities, which could not only control the output power ratio of the OPDW orange laser, but also could be tuned between multiple pairs of the OPDW orange lasers. Especially, the gain competition between the two transition lines could be avoided by using the compound cavities, and the compound cavities could produce more different OPDW combinations. In this work, a CW OPDW Sm:YLF/Sm:LLF orange laser with power-ratio tuning was achieved. The OPDW orange laser at 605 and 606 nm was obtained with the highest total output power of 1.41 W. The highest total optical-to-optical conversion efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power at 479 nm was 16.5 %. Furthermore, a CW OPDW Sm:YLF/Sm:LLF orange laser with wavelength tuning was also realized. The nine pair OPDW orange lasers were realized by adjusting the Lyot filters. The highest total output power of 1.68 W was obtained at 605 and 606 nm with power ratio of 1:1, resulting in an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 22.5 %.