Conductor alternatives
Conductor is the app from Melty Labs that runs Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode side by side, each task in its own workspace and branch, through to the pull request. It is good at that. People look elsewhere for a few concrete reasons, and the right alternative depends on which one is yours.
This page is about Conductor for coding agents, not Conductor the SEO platform or Netflix's workflow engine. Every fact was checked on the products' own pages on 1 November 2026. We make Orage, one of the cloud options below, and say where it fits and where it does not.
The short answer
- You are on Windows or Linux: Conductor's desktop app is macOS only. Emdash, Orca, Pane, T3 Code and Nimbalyst run on all three systems.
- You want open source: Conductor is closed. Emdash (Apache 2.0), Orca, T3 Code and Nimbalyst (MIT), Pane (AGPL) and Claude Squad (AGPL) are open.
- You only use one agent: the vendors now do parallel work themselves. The Codex app and Claude Code's desktop app both give each task its own worktree, and both have a cloud mode.
- You want the work to go on with your laptop closed: Conductor Cloud does this on Pro ($50 a month). So do Claude Code on the web, Codex cloud, Cursor's cloud agents, GitHub Copilot in the cloud, Warp's cloud agents and Orage.
- You want to follow it from your phone: Conductor has an iPhone app on Pro. Paseo, Happy, T3 Code and Orca have phone apps for free, and the vendors' own apps cover their agents.
What Conductor does well
Before switching, know what you would give up. Conductor runs four agents from different companies in one window, with your own subscriptions and keys, and Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode come built in. Each workspace is a git worktree with its own terminal and diff, and the path from a chat to a reviewed pull request is short. Since July it also runs workspaces in the cloud, and since October an iPhone app can drive the workspaces on your Mac (an experimental setting). The free plan covers everything local.
Why people look for alternatives
From the product pages:
- macOS only. The install guide says Conductor "is not available for Windows or Linux yet".
- Closed source, with four agents to choose from.
- The cloud and the phone app need Pro, $50 a month, or Teams at $60 per person.
- Cloud workspaces sleep and stop. A cloud workspace sleeps after 20 minutes without agent or terminal activity, and every sandbox stops after 23 hours and 50 minutes even if it is busy, which can cut off a running agent turn (Conductor's docs).
- Cloud chats live on Conductor's servers, and cloud workspaces work with GitHub only. Cloud compute is free today, but Conductor says it plans usage based pricing.
And in users' words on Hacker News: "conductor.build is Mac only"; "Anyone know of a similar tool to conductor for Linux?"; "I love Conductor on my Mac, but I need something for my WSL2 machine"; "I don't want to give up my freedom and get heavily reliant on closed source".
Every alternative, compared
| Tool | Runs on | Agents | Where the work runs | Phone | Open source | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conductor | macOS | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode | Your Mac, or its cloud on Pro | iPhone, on Pro | No | Free; Pro $50 a month |
| Codex app | macOS, Windows, Linux (preview) | Codex | Your computer, or Codex cloud | ChatGPT app | CLI yes, app no | Your ChatGPT plan |
| Claude Code desktop | macOS, Windows, Linux (beta) | Claude Code | Your computer, or Anthropic's cloud | Claude app | No | Your Claude plan |
| Cursor | macOS, Windows, Linux | Cursor's agent | Your computer, or cloud agents | iPhone app | No | Cloud agents from $30 a month |
| Paradev (was Superset) | macOS, Linux (experimental) | Any CLI agent | Your computer; cloud in beta | iPhone, iPad on Pro | Source available | Free; Pro $20 a month |
| Emdash | macOS, Windows, Linux | 20+ CLI agents | Your computer, or over SSH | No | Apache 2.0 | Free |
| Orca | macOS, Windows, Linux | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi | Your computer, or over SSH | iPhone, Android | MIT | Free |
| Pane | macOS, Windows (with WSL), Linux | Any CLI agent | Your computer | Remote Pane | AGPL | Free |
| T3 Code | macOS, Windows, Linux, web | Codex, Claude, Cursor, OpenCode | Your computer, or your own server | iPhone, Android | MIT | Free |
| Nimbalyst | macOS, Windows, Linux | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode | Your computer | iPhone | MIT | Free desktop |
| Paseo | Desktop and web, self hosted | Several CLI agents | Your own machines | iPhone, Android | Yes | Free |
| Claude Squad | macOS, Linux (terminal) | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Amp | Your computer, in tmux | No | AGPL | Free |
| Orage | Any browser; iPhone, iPad, Mac | Codex | A cloud machine per chat | iPhone | No | Private for now |
The local ones
If what you liked was Conductor's window on your own computer, the closest are Emdash, Orca and Pane: each gives every agent its own worktree and branch, they run on all three systems, and they are free and open source. Emdash supports the most agents. T3 Code is a chat first app that also runs on your own server. Nimbalyst is the successor of Crystal: a visual workspace around Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode. Paradev, the app formerly called Superset, is the most complete paid one, but it is source available rather than open source, and has no Windows app. Claude Squad is the terminal option, though its last release was in August.
The cloud ones
If what you liked was Conductor Cloud, where nothing of yours has to stay awake:
- Claude Code on the web and Codex cloud run the vendor's own agent on a copy of your GitHub repository, included in their paid plans, with phone apps.
- Cursor's cloud agents and GitHub Copilot in the cloud do the same inside those products. Copilot can also run Claude and Codex as agents, in preview.
- Warp can run Claude Code or Codex as cloud agents on your own credentials.
- Orage is ours, below.
Gone or changed in 2026
Lists of alternatives age fast. Since January: Google's Jules turns read only on 11 November and closes on 31 December; Terragon shut down in February; the company behind Vibe Kanban closed in April and the code is now run by its community; Crystal became Nimbalyst; Superset became Paradev; and Omnara turned into an API for managed agents rather than an app like Conductor.
Where Orage fits
Orage is a remote Codex. Each chat that edits a repository gets its own
Linux machine in the cloud with your repositories cloned on a new branch,
the real Codex agent (codex app-server) works there, and you follow it in
any browser, on Windows, Linux or Android too, or in the iPhone, iPad and
Mac apps. Your laptop can be closed the whole time, and your own ChatGPT
plan pays for the model. You talk to an agent of your own that can hand work
to helpers and tell you what finished, and if you want, it says so between
the songs you are listening to.
What Orage is not, compared with Conductor: it runs Codex, not Claude Code or Cursor; it does not work in folders on your own computer; and it is private today. We let people in a few at a time, from the list below. If you need several vendors' agents on your Mac, stay with Conductor or pick one of the local apps above.
Questions
Is there a Conductor for Windows or Linux? Not from Melty Labs yet; its install guide has a waitlist. Emdash, Orca, Pane, T3 Code and Nimbalyst run on Windows and Linux.
Is there a free, open source Conductor alternative? Yes: Emdash, Orca, T3 Code, Nimbalyst, Pane and Claude Squad are free and open source.
What does Conductor cost? Local workspaces are free. Pro, with the cloud, the iPhone app and the API, is $50 a month; Teams is $60 per person a month. The agents themselves run on your own subscriptions or keys.
Do Conductor's cloud workspaces run all day? Not unattended: they sleep after 20 minutes without activity and every sandbox stops after 23 hours and 50 minutes.
Which alternative works from a phone? Paseo, Happy, T3 Code and Orca are free with phone apps; the Codex, Claude and Cursor apps cover their own agents; Orage has an iPhone app for its cloud machines.
Updated 2026-11-01