# Conductor alternatives for Windows, Linux, and teams

> Conductor's app is Mac-only as of October 2026. The best alternatives for Windows, Linux, and teams: AQ, Orca, vibe-kanban, OpenHands, Cursor, and more, compared honestly.

Updated October 22, 2026 (first published July 10, 2026) · by the AQ team · Canonical: https://aq.dev/alternatives/conductor/

The best Conductor alternatives as of October 2026, depending on why you are looking: **AQ** if you want Conductor's parallel-agent model in a browser, multiplayer, on any OS, with execution in your own cloud; **Orca** if you want a free, open source desktop app that actually runs on Windows and Linux; **vibe-kanban** if you want a free local board and accept community maintenance; **OpenHands** if the requirement is open source plus a real self-hosted deployment story; **Cursor cloud agents** or **GitHub Copilot Agent HQ** if you would rather get background agents bundled with a subscription you already pay for. The reason people search at all: Conductor is a Mac desktop app (the Windows waitlist it opened earlier in 2026 has not shipped a version, no Linux version is announced, and as of October 2026 its own site describes the app as Mac only), its cloud workspaces are driven from the Mac app, an iOS app, or the API rather than a browser, and its company-wide Teams plan is still invite-only. The full field, honestly compared, is below.

## What Conductor does well, and where it stops

Conductor (conductor.build) is YC-backed with a $22M Series A, has a Linear integration (a workspace can start from a Linear issue), and its local mode remains free: parallel agents in isolated git worktrees on your own Mac, bring your own Claude or Codex subscription. After a mid-2026 stretch of pitching the cloud first, its homepage leads with the local product again as of October 2026 ("run parallel coding agents on your Mac," with Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor agents in isolated workspaces), and Conductor Cloud (launched July 30, 2026) sits on top as the paid tier: cloud workspaces run in managed Vercel sandboxes (8-core, 16 GB machines in Conductor's cloud) with your repos and dependencies pre-installed, so agents keep working after you close the app; paid plans include a pool of cloud workspace hours, with usage-based compute pricing planned. The release pace has not slowed: September and October 2026 brought OpenCode 2.0 support (0.87.0, September 18), sign-in with ChatGPT (0.89.0, September 29), and a proper iOS app (0.90.0, October 2). Pricing as of October 2026: the local mode is free; the Pro plan is $50 per month and includes cloud workspace hours, the Conductor API, the mobile app, and live collaboration with up to five Pro users; the Teams plan is $60 per user per month, adds company-wide multiplayer with an admin portal and centralized billing, and is still invite-only; and a newer Enterprise tier (custom pricing) adds SAML SSO, SCIM, a data processing agreement, and an SLA, with a self-hosted cloud option listed as in development. Its funding and pace make it a safer bet than most tools in this fast-consolidating category (Crystal was deprecated in February 2026; Bloop, the company behind vibe-kanban, shut down in April 2026).

The gaps are not bugs, they are the shape of the product. It is a native Mac app: as of October 2026 Windows developers are still waiting on a waitlist that has not shipped, no Linux version is announced, and there is no browser version, so even Conductor Cloud is managed from the Mac app, the iOS app, or the API. Collaboration has opened up a notch (Pro covers up to five people), but company-wide multiplayer remains gated behind the invite-only Teams plan. And the cloud execution it added runs in Conductor's hosted sandboxes, not on infrastructure you control; the self-hosted cloud option on its enterprise page is listed as in development, not shipped. If platform support, open collaboration, or running agents in your own cloud is your actual problem, here is the honest field.

## Conductor alternatives at a glance

| Tool | Platform | Execution model | Team features | Price posture (as of October 2026) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Conductor (reference) | Mac desktop app + iOS app (Windows waitlisted, unshipped) | Local worktrees, or Conductor Cloud hosted sandboxes on paid plans | Up to 5 people on Pro; company-wide on the invite-only Teams plan | Free local; Pro $50/mo; Teams $60/user/mo; Enterprise custom |
| AQ | Browser (macOS, Windows, Linux, mobile) | Your own VM or an AQ-managed VM; real CLIs in tmux | Multiplayer workspaces, sharing, guest preview links, Linear intake | $50/user/mo early access (standard $200); free solo sandbox |
| Orca | Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) + mobile companion | Local worktrees; DIY SSH or headless server | None (single-user) | Free, MIT open source |
| vibe-kanban | Local web UI, cross-platform | Local, runs coding CLIs on your machine | Single-user board | Free, open source (community-maintained) |
| OpenHands | Web, or self-hosted | Their cloud or your own infrastructure (enterprise Kubernetes runtime) | Team and enterprise features | Open source; paid cloud |
| Cursor cloud agents | Cursor editor, browser, iOS app, Slack | Dedicated VMs in Cursor's cloud | Cursor team plans | Bundled with Cursor plans |
| GitHub Copilot Agent HQ | GitHub, VS Code, mobile, CLI | GitHub's cloud | Org-wide mission control view | Included with paid Copilot plans |
| Warp Oz | Via Warp and the Oz CLI | Warp's cloud, fleets of agents | Team-oriented | Commercial (Warp plans) |

## 1. AQ: the same idea, in a browser, for a team, in your own cloud

AQ is the multiplayer coding harness where engineering teams run AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex together: shared live terminals, a code editor, and app previews, in your own cloud.

AQ answers the three constraints Conductor still has. Platform: it runs in the browser, so macOS, Windows, and Linux are equally first-class, and it works from a phone. Collaboration: workspaces are multiplayer by default rather than a plan feature; a teammate opens the same workspace and sees the same live terminal, editor, and dev-server preview, typing into someone else's terminal is delegated by its owner approving a control request in one click, you can keep a workspace private and share it with specific people, and guest preview links let outsiders see a running app without an account. Execution: agents run as real CLIs (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor Agent, Kimi, Grok, plain shells) in persistent tmux sessions on a VM you connect from your own cloud or a dedicated AQ-managed VM, so sessions survive your laptop closing and resume from any device; that is a different posture from Conductor Cloud, where execution lives in the vendor's hosted sandboxes. Each workspace is an isolated git worktree (branch ai/{id}-{slug}, automatic dependency install, one-click rebase onto main), like Conductor's workspaces. It shares Conductor's Linear affinity and goes further: label an issue "ai-task" and a workspace appears, status syncs both ways, and ownership follows the assignee. Per-user CLI logins mean AQ never marks up usage on your own subscriptions. The full head-to-head is at [AQ vs Conductor](https://aq.dev/compare/aq-vs-conductor/).

Fit: the direct answer for Windows and Linux developers and for teams that want collaboration without an invite gate. The trade is that the team experience is paid ($50 per user per month early access, standard $200), where Conductor's local single-player mode is free; AQ's Free plan is a no-time-limit personal sandbox on a private machine AQ creates, so evaluating it costs nothing.

## 2. Orca: free, open source, and actually on Windows and Linux

Orca (onorca.dev, the stablyai/orca project on GitHub) is the closest thing to Conductor's local experience that runs everywhere: a free, MIT-licensed desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux that orchestrates a fleet of coding agents in parallel git worktrees, working with 27 named terminal agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Grok, and more) plus any other agent CLI, on the subscriptions you already pay for, per its site as of October 2026. There is still no Orca pricing, and companion apps for iOS and Android let you monitor your own agents from a phone. The shape to understand before choosing it: Orca is single-player by design (a teammate cannot join your session; showing someone means screen-sharing), and agents run on the machine where the app runs unless you assemble a remote setup yourself over its SSH remote worktrees or headless server mode. Fit: the free cross-platform pick for a solo developer who wants Conductor's parallel-worktree model today on Windows or Linux. If you outgrow the single-player shape, our [Orca alternatives](https://aq.dev/alternatives/orca/) guide covers the next step.

## 3. vibe-kanban: free and cross-platform, if you accept community maintenance

vibe-kanban is an open source kanban board for orchestrating coding CLIs from a local web UI, so it is not tied to macOS. It is free and has a large community (roughly 28,000 GitHub stars as of August 2026). The caveat: Bloop, the company behind it, shut down in April 2026, and the project is community-maintained now under Apache 2.0, with slower releases and no commercial support. Fit: a free cross-platform pick for a solo developer who prefers a board over a cockpit and is comfortable with that risk profile. More detail in our [vibe-kanban alternatives](https://aq.dev/alternatives/vibe-kanban/) guide.

## 4. OpenHands: open source with a real deployment story

OpenHands (openhands.dev) is an open source platform for cloud coding agents: hosted cloud, self-hosted, or an enterprise Kubernetes runtime. Fit: the pick when the requirement is open source plus something an infrastructure team can actually operate. Unlike Conductor, it runs its own agent against your model keys rather than the CLIs you already subscribe to.

## 5. Cursor cloud agents: cross-platform via the editor you may already use

Cursor runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and its plans bundle cloud agents that execute on dedicated VMs in Cursor's cloud. As of August 2026 they can be driven from the editor, a browser (cursor.com/agents), the iOS app, or Slack, and can be triggered by events like a pull request or a schedule. Fit: if your team already pays for Cursor, this is the shortest path to parallel background agents on any OS. You get Cursor's agent in Cursor's cloud, not a choice of CLIs on your own infrastructure.

## 6. GitHub Copilot Agent HQ: agents where your code already lives

Agent HQ brings multi-vendor agents into Copilot with a mission-control view across GitHub, VS Code, mobile, and the CLI, driven from issues and pull requests. As of August 2026 it is in public preview for paid Copilot subscribers. Fit: the most team-legible option for organizations standardized on GitHub, and it works from any OS because it lives in GitHub. It is a delegation surface, not a live parallel-workspace environment like Conductor.

## 7. Warp Oz: managed agent fleets for teams

Warp Oz (warp.dev/oz), launched in February 2026, is an orchestration platform for fleets of cloud agents, built with teams in mind; it added support for multiple agent harnesses in May 2026. Fit: worth a look if you want a managed, team-oriented take on running many agents at once and are comfortable with execution in Warp's cloud.

## How to choose

On Windows or Linux and want Conductor's experience today: AQ if you want it in the browser with a team, Orca if you want a free open source desktop cockpit, vibe-kanban if you want a minimal local board (our guide to [Conductor alternatives for Windows and Linux](https://aq.dev/guides/conductor-alternatives-for-windows-and-linux/) goes deeper on this case). Need teammates in the same session without an invite-only gate: AQ is among the few tools built around that. Want agents on infrastructure you control rather than a vendor's sandbox pool: AQ (your own VM) or OpenHands (self-hosted). Want open source: Orca for a desktop cockpit, vibe-kanban for a local board, OpenHands for a platform. Already paying Cursor or GitHub: their bundled agents are the path of least resistance. And if you are a solo Mac developer with none of these constraints, the honest advice is that Conductor remains a strong default, and Conductor Cloud on its Pro plan now covers both the close-your-laptop case and a small group; join the Windows waitlist only if you can afford to wait.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is Conductor available on Windows or Linux?

No. As of October 2026, Conductor is a Mac desktop app with an iOS companion app (shipped October 2, 2026). The Windows waitlist it opened earlier in 2026 has not produced a release, its site describes the app as Mac only, no Linux version is announced, and Conductor Cloud workspaces are managed from the Mac app, the iOS app, or the API rather than a browser. Browser-based platforms like AQ, or cross-platform tools like Orca and vibe-kanban, are the practical routes for non-Mac developers today.

### Is Conductor free?

The local mode is free as of October 2026: parallel agents in worktrees on your own Mac, bring your own Claude or Codex subscription. Conductor Cloud requires a paid plan: Pro at $50 per month includes cloud workspace hours, the API, the mobile app, and live collaboration with up to five Pro users. Company-wide multiplayer requires the Teams plan at $60 per user per month, which Conductor's site says is currently invite-only, and an Enterprise tier with custom pricing adds SAML SSO, SCIM, and an SLA.

### Can two people work in the same Conductor workspace?

Yes. Conductor Multiplayer lets people in the same Conductor org share a workspace and prompt agents together, and as of October 2026 the Pro plan covers live collaboration with up to five Pro users while company-wide multiplayer ships on the invite-only Teams plan. In AQ, multiplayer is the default model: teammates open the same workspace and watch the same live session, and the owner delegates typing by approving a control request in one click.

### What is Conductor Cloud?

Conductor Cloud, launched July 30, 2026, runs Conductor workspaces in managed hosted sandboxes (Conductor's docs describe 8-core, 16 GB Vercel sandbox machines) with your repos and dependencies pre-installed, so agents keep working when you close the app. As of October 2026 it is available on the Pro, Teams, and Enterprise plans, with a pool of included workspace hours and usage-based compute pricing planned, and it is driven from the Mac app, the iOS app, or the Conductor API. Execution happens in Conductor's hosted sandboxes; if you want agents on a VM in your own cloud account instead, that is AQ's model.

### What is the best free Conductor alternative?

For a solo developer, Orca: free, MIT-licensed, runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and orchestrates more than two dozen coding CLIs in parallel git worktrees, though it is single-user and local by default. vibe-kanban is the free minimal-board option, community-maintained since April 2026. For evaluating a team-oriented platform without paying, AQ's Free plan is a no-time-limit personal sandbox on a private machine AQ creates.

### What is the closest thing to Conductor that runs in a browser?

AQ. It uses the same core model (parallel agents, one isolated git worktree per workspace, the real Claude Code and Codex CLIs) but runs them in persistent tmux sessions on a VM you connect from your own cloud or an AQ-managed VM, and streams the session to the browser, which is what makes it OS-independent and shareable with teammates.

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About AQ: AQ is the multiplayer coding harness where engineering teams run AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex together: shared live terminals, a code editor, and app previews, in your own cloud. Start at [aq.dev](https://aq.dev/).