Conductor alternatives for running coding agents on Mac

If you want what Conductor does under a different licence or on a different platform, start with Superset and Emdash: both give every task its own Git worktree and both are free for local use, and Emdash is open source and runs on Windows and Linux as well as macOS. If you would rather stay in a terminal, cmux is a free, open-source Mac terminal built for watching many agents at once. Nimbalyst, Maestri and Armadai change the shape of the workspace instead, and suit you if the hard part is keeping sight of everything that is running.

What Conductor does, so you know what you are replacing

Conductor is a Mac app that runs Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode in parallel. Each workspace is a Git worktree on its own branch, with a terminal, a diff viewer and a path to a pull request, so several agents can work on one repository without editing the same files on disk. Local workspaces are on the free plan. Pro costs $50 a month and adds Conductor Cloud, where agents run in hosted sandboxes and keep working after you close your laptop, along with multiplayer, the Conductor API and the mobile app.

Three things about it are fixed. Conductor's install page says it is not available for Windows or Linux yet. Its terms describe the platform as proprietary. And the unit of work is a workspace: one task, on one branch, in one worktree, listed in a sidebar.

Conductor and six alternatives at a glance

Six alternatives and who each one suits

Superset: the same model, with a free desktop app and public source

Superset is the nearest match to Conductor's workflow. Each agent runs in its own Git worktree, a built-in diff viewer lets you review and edit changes, and a browser pane previews dev servers with ports detected per workspace. It works with any CLI agent, including Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode. The free plan covers one user with local workspaces, the desktop app and the CLI, and Pro adds remote access, automations, Linear and Slack integrations and the mobile app. The code is public under the Elastic License 2.0, which Superset itself calls source-available rather than OSI-approved open source.

Choose it if you like Conductor's workflow and want to bring a CLI agent Conductor does not list, read the source, or drive workspaces from a command line.

Emdash: open source, on Windows and Linux too

Emdash is a free desktop app under the Apache-2.0 licence, with builds for macOS, Windows and Linux. Each task gets its own Git branch and worktree, and you review diffs, open pull requests and watch CI checks from the same window. It supports more than 25 coding agents, can pass issues from Linear, Jira and GitHub straight to an agent, and can run tasks on remote machines over SSH.

Choose it if you are not on a Mac, or if an open-source licence is a requirement.

cmux: a terminal instead of a task manager

cmux is a native macOS terminal built on Ghostty's rendering library. Vertical tabs show each workspace's Git branch, working directory and ports. A ring lights up around a pane when an agent needs attention. There are split panes, an in-app browser, and a CLI and socket API for scripting, and any agent that runs in a terminal works in it. The Mac app is free and open source under GPL-3.0-or-later, and runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

Choose it if you already work in a terminal and want better attention management, not a new workflow. The cmux site says it can replace the terminal supervision layer, and that Conductor still fits teams that want a packaged worktree and review flow, so that flow is what you would be giving up.

Nimbalyst: sessions on a board, with visual editors around them

Nimbalyst runs parallel Claude Code and Codex sessions and arranges them on a kanban board by phase. Any session can opt into its own Git worktree. Around the sessions it puts visual editors for Markdown, mockups, diagrams, spreadsheets and code, and every AI edit arrives as a diff you approve. The desktop and iOS apps are MIT licensed and free for individuals, with no account needed, on macOS, Windows and Linux.

Choose it if your agents produce specs, mockups and documents as well as code, and you want to review all of it in one place.

Maestri: an infinite canvas, bought once

Maestri puts terminals, notes, file trees and embedded browser windows on an infinite canvas, with one canvas per project. You draw connections between terminals so agents can prompt each other, and you give each agent a role. The free tier includes one workspace with unlimited agents, and Pro is a one-time $18 payment for unlimited workspaces. Unlike Conductor, it has Windows and Linux builds.

Choose it if you want a spatial layout and agent-to-agent hand-offs, and prefer paying once. The two canvas apps are compared in detail in Armadai vs Maestri.

Armadai: several projects in view at once

Armadai is a native macOS app that puts many projects on one infinite canvas. Each project folder becomes a workspace with its own agents, terminals, code editor, browser, notes and task boards, and you zoom out to see every project or zoom in to work on one. A sidebar shows which Claude Code and Codex sessions are working, idle or waiting for approval across all of them, and you can answer a request from there. A master agent, itself Claude Code or Codex, can open workspaces, launch agents and send them work from one conversation.

Worktrees play a narrower part than in Conductor. When you hand a task from a task board to Claude Code or Codex, that run gets its own Git worktree and comes back as a draft pull request for you to review.

Armadai costs $20 a month or $120 a year. The 7-day free trial requires a payment method, and there is no free plan. It needs macOS 14 or later and supports Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Choose it if your problem is several projects running at once, not several branches of one, and that is worth a subscription to you. Plan details are under pricing.

If you searched for a Windows, Linux, open-source or free alternative

Armadai is not the answer to any of those searches. It does not run on Windows or Linux, it is not open source, and it has no free plan. Pick from these instead.

• Windows: Emdash, Nimbalyst and Maestri all publish Windows builds. Maestri's is for Windows 11 on x64.
• Linux: Emdash, Nimbalyst and Maestri publish Linux builds. Superset has an experimental x64 AppImage and says macOS is its primary target.
• Open source: Emdash (Apache-2.0), Nimbalyst (MIT for the desktop and iOS apps) and cmux (GPL-3.0-or-later). Superset's code is public, but the Elastic License 2.0 is source-available and not OSI-approved open source.
• Free: Conductor's own free plan already covers local workspaces. Superset, Emdash, cmux and Nimbalyst are free for individual local use, and Maestri is free with one workspace.

Superset and cmux are set against Conductor in more detail in Conductor vs Superset vs cmux.