Best Conductor Alternatives as Conductor Joins Meta (2026)

Conductor is joining Meta. As of November 4, 2026, new users can't sign up for Conductor or download the app. Conductor Cloud goes read-only on November 13 and shuts down on November 20. The local Mac app gets new models and critical bug fixes only until early 2027, then starts winding down (Conductor's announcement).

Conductor says more than 100,000 builders use it. If you're one of them and need a replacement, here's the short answer:

For a product team, PMs and designers included: LightSprint. Every task runs in its own cloud sandbox with a live preview, and engineers approve every merge.
For the closest match to local Conductor on a Mac: Paradev (formerly Superset). One git worktree per task, any CLI agent, free for one user.
For a free, open-source app on Windows, macOS or Linux: Emdash. Apache 2.0, with remote machines over SSH and ticket intake from Linear, GitHub and Jira.
For visual review of plans, mockups and diffs: Nimbalyst. MIT-licensed desktop app with an iOS companion.
For the terminal: Claude Squad. tmux plus git worktrees, no GUI.
For one provider only: Claude Code or the Codex app on their own.

A note on the name: this guide covers Conductor, the app for running parallel coding agents at conductor.build. It is not about Conductor, the SEO platform.

Disclosure: LightSprint publishes this guide and makes one of the tools on it. We read each tool's official site, docs, pricing page or README on November 5, 2026, and checked them against Hacker News and Product Hunt discussions. We did not run benchmarks. Prices are in US dollars and change often, so confirm them with each vendor.

What happens to Conductor, and what to do before November 20

Here is the timeline from Conductor's announcement and changelog:

November 4, 2026: No new sign-ups or downloads. Existing free users can't upgrade, and Pro users keep Pro features for free.
November 13: Conductor Cloud workspaces go read-only. You can read old chats and export data, but you can't send new messages. Active subscribers get a refund.
November 20: Conductor Cloud shuts down and Conductor begins deleting Cloud user data.
Early 2027: Local Conductor stops getting new models and critical fixes and starts winding down. Conductor says it will delete all user data when the app shuts down.

If you used Conductor Cloud, do this now:

Move the cloud workspaces you still need to your Mac. Right-click a workspace and choose Transfer to local. Its chats come with it.
Export your data. Go to Settings → Account → Export data.
Push every branch you care about. Make sure each workspace's branch is on your Git remote, so no work depends on Conductor's copy.
Save your setup. Write down your setup scripts and the gitignored files Conductor copied into each workspace, such as .env.local. Every alternative below needs the same steps.

If you only use Conductor locally, it keeps working for now. You have until early 2027, but switching before you depend on it more is cheaper than switching later.

What to look for in a Conductor replacement

Conductor did a few things well. Its docs describe one workspace per task, with its own branch, files, terminal, diff and review path. It ran first-party Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode agents on your own subscriptions and keys. Later it added Conductor Cloud, with agents in isolated microVMs, and multiplayer, so teammates could share a workspace link and prompt agents together.

So start with these questions:

Where should agents run? Local worktrees separate files, but commands still run on your Mac with your user permissions, as Conductor's own docs note. If you relied on Conductor Cloud so agents kept going with your laptop closed, you need cloud workspaces, not just a worktree manager. Our guide to cloud agents explains the difference.
Which agents do you use? Most alternatives still let you bring your Claude Code or Codex subscription.
Which operating system? Conductor's desktop app was Mac-only. Several alternatives run on Windows and Linux.
Who needs to use it? Most tools here are built for one developer at one desk. If PMs, designers or other engineers need to start or review work, that narrows the list fast.
Where is your bottleneck? One Hacker News commenter put it plainly: the bottleneck was "never the ai not being able to write 10 different poc of my feature simultaneously - but the human factor - needing to carefully review what ai produced". More parallel agents only help if review keeps up.

One more caution: Vibe Kanban still shows up in these lists, but its maker, Bloop, shut down in April 2026 and the project is now community-maintained.

Conductor alternatives compared

Tool	Best for	Where agents run	Platforms	Starting price
LightSprint	Product teams, including PMs and designers	Isolated cloud sandbox per task	Browser	Free (5 tasks and plans a week); Pro $40 per seat per month
Paradev (formerly Superset)	The closest local Conductor replacement on a Mac	Local git worktrees; cloud workspaces in beta on Team	macOS; Linux experimental	Free for 1 user; Pro $20 per user per month
Emdash	Open source on every desktop OS	Local git worktrees or your own machines over SSH	macOS, Windows, Linux	Free (Apache 2.0)
Nimbalyst	Visual editing and diff review	Local git worktrees	macOS, Windows, Linux; iOS companion	Free (MIT)
Claude Squad	Developers who live in the terminal	tmux sessions with git worktrees	macOS, Linux; Windows through WSL	Free (AGPL-3.0)
Claude Code or Codex app	Teams standardized on one provider	Local worktrees, plus each vendor's cloud	Varies by vendor	Included with Claude or ChatGPT plans

1. LightSprint: best Conductor alternative for teams

Conductor helped one engineer run many agents. LightSprint is built for the next step: a whole product team running agents on the real codebase, with engineering in control of what merges.

Here is how it maps to what you used in Conductor:

A workspace per task becomes a sandbox per task. Every task gets its own full-stack environment: an isolated cloud sandbox, with a branched database when the change needs one, and a live preview anyone can click through.
Bring your own agents. Use Claude, Codex or your own model subscription or API key, with no markup on inference.
The review path is your existing one. Every task becomes a pull request. Branch rules, required reviews, GitHub Actions and merge queues still apply. On Pro, every task includes agent-captured screenshots and video recordings, so reviewers see what changed before approving it.
Multiplayer is the default. Anyone on the team can start a change from LightSprint, Slack, Linear or Jira and shape a plan grounded in your codebase. Builders, usually PMs, designers or ops, can propose changes and view previews but can't merge. Approvers, usually engineers or leads, review and merge.

If you used Conductor Cloud, the move is natural: agents already run in the cloud, so work keeps going when your laptop is closed.

Where it fits less well: LightSprint isn't a native Mac app that drives agents in local worktrees and your own terminal. If that is all you want, Paradev or Emdash is a closer match.

Pricing (pricing page): Free is $0 with 5 free tasks and plans a week, one workspace, GitHub integration and a live sandbox preview for each task. Pro is $40 per seat per month for up to 20 seats, with unlimited tasks and plans, 10M credits per seat shared across the team, multi-repository support, automations, shared skills and guardrails, and automated QA recordings. Enterprise is custom.

For deeper comparisons, see LightSprint vs Claude Code and LightSprint vs Codex.

2. Paradev (formerly Superset): closest match to local Conductor

Paradev is a desktop app for running CLI coding agents in parallel. It was called Superset until October 2026, and its CLI command is still superset. Each task gets its own git worktree, branch and terminals. It runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor's agent, Copilot CLI and any other CLI agent on your own subscriptions, and it doesn't proxy model calls.

Review: a Changes pane for diffs, commits and pull requests, plus CI checks and line comments sent back to the agent.
Extras: an in-app browser preview per workspace, a CLI, a TypeScript SDK and an MCP server for scripting, and an iPhone and iPad app on paid plans.
For Conductor users: Paradev says existing Conductor users can move over from the Mac app or from Conductor Cloud.
Platforms: macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel. The Linux AppImage is experimental, and Windows isn't available yet.
Pricing (pricing page): Free for one user with local workspaces. Pro is $20 per user per month, or $16 billed yearly, and adds remote access, automations, Linear and Slack integrations and mobile. Team is $60 per user per month, or $54 billed yearly, and adds cloud workspaces in beta with 150 hours per seat each month.

Watch out for: the code is public under the Elastic License 2.0, which is source-available rather than open source. Its own docs note that worktrees separate files but don't sandbox processes or prevent merge conflicts.

3. Emdash: best open-source Conductor alternative

Emdash is an Apache 2.0 desktop app for running coding agents in parallel, each task in its own git worktree. It detects installed agent CLIs automatically, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Amp, Devin, Droid and GitHub Copilot.

Remote work: connect to your own machines over SSH and SFTP and run the same parallel workflow on remote codebases.
Ticket intake: send issues from Linear, GitHub, Jira, GitLab, Asana and others straight to an agent.
Review: diffs, pull requests, CI checks and merge from one place.
Privacy: local-first. Emdash says it doesn't send your code or chats to its servers, and telemetry can be turned off.
Platforms: macOS, Windows and Linux (x64 and ARM64).
Pricing: free.

Watch out for: there are no hosted cloud sandboxes. If you want agents running off your laptop, you supply and maintain the remote machines.

4. Nimbalyst: best for visual review

Nimbalyst is a free, MIT-licensed workspace for Codex, Claude Code and OpenCode. Parallel sessions each run in their own git worktree, and it adds editors that most agent runners don't have.

Visual editing: WYSIWYG editors for markdown, mockups, Mermaid diagrams, Excalidraw and CSV, so you and the agent edit the same files.
Review: step through red/green diffs in the rendered document and accept or reject each change.
Tracking: a session kanban board and task trackers the agents can read and update.
Mobile: an iOS companion app to answer agents, review diffs and queue the next task.
Platforms: macOS, Windows and Linux.

Watch out for: its agent list is shorter than Conductor's. Codex and Claude Code are fully supported, while OpenCode and Copilot are listed as alpha.

5. Claude Squad: best for the terminal

Claude Squad is a terminal app that manages several Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Aider and other local agents in separate workspaces. Each task gets an isolated git workspace, so agents don't conflict, and you can let tasks finish in the background.

Requirements: tmux and the GitHub CLI.
Review: switch between a preview tab and a diff tab, then commit and push a branch from the menu.
Platforms: anywhere tmux runs, which means macOS and Linux. On Windows you'll need WSL.
Pricing: free and open source under AGPL-3.0.

Watch out for: there is no GUI, no hosted environment and no team layer. It replaces Conductor's sidebar, not Conductor Cloud.

6. Claude Code or Codex on their own

If your team uses one provider, you may not need a separate app. Claude Code documents a native claude --worktree workflow for parallel sessions, and OpenAI's Codex app runs parallel Codex threads in separate worktrees. Claude Code is included in paid Claude plans, and OpenAI says Codex is included across eligible ChatGPT plans.

Watch out for: you give up mixing agents from different vendors, which was one of Conductor's main draws. Our Claude Code and Codex comparisons cover where each fits.

How to switch from Conductor

Export first. Transfer cloud workspaces to local and run Export data before November 13.
Recreate your setup. Conductor used setup scripts, a list of files to copy into each workspace, and CONDUCTOR_PORT to give each workspace its own ports. Paradev has a setup command in .paradev/config.json. LightSprint builds each task's environment from a template for your repository.
Keep shared context in the repo. Conductor recommended keeping context in committed docs and repository instructions rather than one chat. Files like AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md come with you to any tool.
Run one real task end to end. Pick a small bug, take it from prompt to merged pull request in the new tool, and check that your review and CI steps still work.

FAQ

Is Conductor shutting down?

Partly, and in stages. Conductor is joining Meta. Conductor Cloud goes read-only on November 13, 2026 and shuts down on November 20, 2026. The local Mac app keeps working and gets new models and critical bug fixes until early 2027, then starts winding down.

Can I still download Conductor?

No. Since November 4, 2026, new users can't sign up for Conductor or download the app. Existing users can keep using the local app.

What is the best free Conductor alternative?

Emdash (Apache 2.0) and Nimbalyst (MIT) are free, open-source desktop apps that run agents in parallel git worktrees on macOS, Windows and Linux. Claude Squad is free for the terminal. Paradev is free for one user working locally.

Is there a Conductor alternative for Windows or Linux?

Yes. Emdash and Nimbalyst run on Windows, macOS and Linux. Claude Squad runs on Linux and on Windows through WSL. Paradev's Linux build is experimental, and it has no Windows build yet.

What is the best Conductor alternative for teams?

LightSprint. Every task runs in an isolated cloud sandbox with a live preview, PMs and designers can propose changes, and engineers approve and merge through your existing GitHub rules.

What can replace Conductor Cloud?

You need a tool that runs agents off your laptop. LightSprint runs every task in a cloud sandbox. Paradev offers cloud workspaces in beta on its Team plan. Claude Code, Codex and Cursor also offer their own cloud agents for a single provider.

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