# CmdBrief vs Conductor: worktrees per task, or workspace per product?

> Conductor runs parallel Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode agents in isolated git worktrees with a diff-first path to a pull request. CmdBrief supervises several products at once.

- **Category:** Comparisons
- **Updated:** 2026-09-29
- **Reading time:** 11 min
- **Canonical page:** https://cmdbrief.com/compare/conductor

The useful answer is not a replacement.

Conductor, from Melty Labs, is a Mac app that gives every task its own git worktree and branch, runs Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or OpenCode inside it, and walks the result through a diff review, a pull request, and a merge. CmdBrief is the local Mac workspace that pins agents, tasks, terminals, diffs, and browser context to each *product* for a founder running several at once, across Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI, Kimi CLI, OpenCode, and Cursor CLI.

The difference is the unit of work. Conductor’s unit is the branch: isolated, reviewed, merged, archived. CmdBrief’s unit is the product, and it stays put between tasks. Both are macOS-only, and both can sit on the same machine.

Provider terms and product behavior can change. Confirm details in Conductor’s docs and on [cmdbrief.com](https://cmdbrief.com/).

## The short answer

Pick **Conductor** when the bottleneck is parallel work against one repository: a worktree and branch created for you per task, agents that cannot collide on disk, a diff viewer whose comments go back to the agent, a Checks tab for CI state, and a pull request at the end. There is a free local tier, and a paid tier that moves the same workspace into a cloud sandbox a team can share.

Pick **CmdBrief** when the bottleneck is across products: several things you are responsible for, each with its own repos, tasks, terminals and browser tools, and six agent CLIs between them whose attention and usage you need on one screen. It creates worktrees only for the code builders a lead agent starts, not per task.

A mixed setup is valid, and this is one of the cleaner pairings on this hub: Conductor’s isolation per task, CmdBrief’s rollup per portfolio. They do not fight for the same window.

## The data behind this comparison

Every value here comes from Conductor’s own feed or documentation, linked beside it. Version, release date and licence refresh automatically from the vendor’s feed; pricing, platform support and the verdicts below are read by a person and dated. **Data checked 2026-09-29.**

|  | Conductor | CmdBrief |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Latest version | 0.87.6 · [source](https://formulae.brew.sh/api/cask/conductor.json) | 0.5.35 · [source](https://cmdbrief.com/features) |
| Released | Not published by the vendor | 2026-08-06 · Generally available since 2026-08-06. |
| Platforms | macOS only; the install page states Conductor is not available for Windows or Linux yet, and documents no minimum macOS version or chip · [source](https://www.conductor.build/docs/installation) | Apple silicon · macOS 26+ |
| Pricing | Free tier with local workspaces and your own subscriptions and keys; Pro $50/month adds Conductor Cloud, multiplayer with up to 5 Pro users, the API and the mobile app; Teams $60/user/month, invite-only; Enterprise custom. Cloud workspaces carry no extra fee yet; usage-based pricing for cloud compute is planned · [source](https://www.conductor.build/pricing) | €29.99/month or €299.90/year · 14-day money-back guarantee |
| Licence | Proprietary; no public source repository for the app · [source](https://www.conductor.build/) | Proprietary |

*Checked 2026-09-29. Prices and platform requirements change — follow the source links before you decide.*

| Tool | Agent CLIs | Agent status | Usage windows | Usage across vendors | Per-product workspace | Diff review | Browser pane | Cloud execution | Windows / Linux | Open source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Conductor (v0.87.6) | Yes — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode run as first-class harnesses. Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode ship bundled with the app; Cursor runs Cursor Agent through the Cursor API. | Partial — A workspace list with “Next chat needing attention” (⌘⌥L). The documented cross-project view — Home, filtered by teammate and by project, with presence dots — is a Cloud organisation feature. | Yes — The changelog documents account limits in the chat: hovering the context ring in a Codex chat shows “account rate limits and reset times” (0.75.0), and since 0.86.0 “the context usage popover shows Claude account limits and reset times, matching Codex.” | Partial — Claude and Codex limits each show in their own chat’s context popover; we found no view that puts several vendors side by side. | Partial — A workspace is one git worktree and branch for one stream of work, archived when it merges. One project holds one repository; `/add-dir` links other workspaces in for cross-repo edits. | Yes — Diff Viewer with a file list, unified view, comments that point at changed lines and go back to the agent, plus a Checks tab for pull-request, CI and review state. | Partial — An in-app browser preview (⌘⇧B) renders a localhost page inside Conductor with Agentation annotations. The changelog introduced it under Settings → Experimental in 0.62.0; the docs do not cover it. | Yes — Conductor Cloud runs each agent in an isolated Linux sandbox hosted by Vercel, which keeps working after the laptop closes. | No — The install page states Conductor is not available for Windows or Linux yet. | No — No public source repository for the app. |
| CmdBrief (v0.5.35) | Yes — Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI, Kimi CLI, OpenCode, and Cursor CLI, supervised with the same states. | Yes — Working, needs-action, completed and failed, rolled up across every product. | Yes — Claude Code 5-hour and weekly, Codex weekly, Grok CLI weekly credits, OpenCode Go rolling / weekly / monthly, Cursor CLI monthly Cursor-models and Other-models pools; Kimi CLI exposes none | Yes — Several vendors’ windows side by side in the sidebar. | Yes — Agents, tasks, terminals, files, diffs and browser panes per product, with saved layouts. | Yes — A git diff viewer beside the agent that made the change. | Yes — Embedded macOS webviews. | No — Local-first. CmdBrief is not a cloud agent orchestrator. | No — Apple silicon · macOS 26+ only. | No — CmdBrief is not open source. |

*A dash means Conductor does not document the capability, not that it is missing. Pick a heading to read one column across both tools.*

> **Tip:** Spotted something out of date? Email hello@cmdbrief.com and it gets corrected at the source, on every page that uses it.

## What Conductor is for

From Conductor’s [homepage](https://www.conductor.build/), [docs](https://www.conductor.build/docs), [git worktrees](https://www.conductor.build/docs/concepts/git-worktrees), [harnesses](https://www.conductor.build/docs/reference/harnesses), [diff viewer](https://www.conductor.build/docs/reference/diff-viewer), [install](https://www.conductor.build/docs/installation), and [changelog](https://www.conductor.build/changelog) pages (fetched 2026-09-29):

- **A worktree per workspace, created for you.** “When you create a workspace, Conductor creates a Git worktree for that workspace and checks out a branch inside it.” Setup, run, terminal and test commands all execute from that directory. A workspace is “a separate, git-backed copy of a project for one stream of work.”
- **Four harnesses, three of them bundled.** “Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode come bundled in Conductor. You do not need to install them separately.” Cursor runs Cursor Agent through the Cursor API with a `CURSOR_API_KEY`. The same page is explicit about billing: “We do not bill or resell model usage.”
- **A review path, not just a diff.** The Diff Viewer has a file list, a unified view, and comments that “can point at changed lines” and go back to the agent. A Checks tab collects git status, pull-request metadata, CI checks, deployments, review threads and todos, and Conductor “may block or discourage merge actions when required work is still open.” Checkpoints, captured in a private Git ref before each turn, revert code and conversation together.
- **Cloud workspaces and multiplayer.** Conductor Cloud runs each agent in an isolated Linux sandbox hosted by Vercel, and agents “keep working after you close your laptop.” In a Cloud organization workspaces and chats are shared, with a Home view filtered by teammate and project, presence, following and reassignment. A beta HTTP API and an MCP server drive the same cloud workspaces programmatically.
- **Account limits in the chat, and a preview browser.** Hovering the context ring in a Codex chat shows “account rate limits and reset times,” and since 0.86.0 “the context usage popover shows Claude account limits and reset times, matching Codex.” An in-app browser preview (⌘⇧B), introduced under Settings → Experimental in 0.62.0, renders a localhost page inside Conductor with Agentation annotations.

Conductor is macOS-only; its install page states it is not available for Windows or Linux yet. It turns one repository into many independent, reviewable streams. The free tier runs local workspaces on your own subscriptions and keys; the paid tiers add the cloud.

## What CmdBrief is for

CmdBrief is a native Rust macOS app for the founder running several products. Each product gets a persistent workspace: agents, tasks, terminals, files, a diff viewer, and browser panes, with saved layouts that come back the way you left them. The sidebar rolls attention up across all of them.

It supervises Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI, Kimi CLI, OpenCode, and Cursor CLI with the same working / needs-action / completed / failed states, and shows each vendor’s usage windows side by side where the provider reports them (Claude Code 5-hour and weekly, Codex weekly, Grok CLI weekly credits, OpenCode Go rolling / weekly / monthly, Cursor CLI monthly Cursor-models and Other-models pools; Kimi CLI exposes none). Session resume lists local threads across those CLIs.

In the Standard view, Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI and OpenCode run as agent panes that draw the conversation, edits and questions instead of a terminal. A lead agent (Claude Code or Codex) can start a crew of Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode agents in one tab, each on a Core, Standard or Light tier of model and effort, with progress counted in plan steps and the questions that need you in one **Needs you** list.

The terminal is a hand-written VT emulator with a GPU text path, and the browser panes are embedded macOS webviews, so the staging site you check after every deploy lives in the product.

Constraints that are real: Apple silicon, macOS 26+, local-first, generally available since 2026-08-06. One plan, CmdBrief Pro, display prices €29.99/mo or €299.90/yr, 14-day money-back, no free trial. It gives a lead’s code builders their own git worktrees when several share a repo; for sessions you open yourself, pair it with `claude --worktree` if you need isolated checkouts. It does not resell agent provider plans.

## Repo-scoped or product-scoped

This is the whole comparison, and it is worth being precise rather than flattering. In Conductor’s own model, “1 project contains 1 repository” and “1 repository contains many workspaces.” A workspace maps to one branch and one working tree, holds its own files, terminal, chat, todos, and `.context` notes, and is archived when the task merges. That is a clean, disciplined unit — and it is deliberately temporary. The context belongs to the branch, and the branch goes away.

CmdBrief’s unit does not go away. A product workspace is the thing you return to: the same repos, tasks with acceptance criteria, terminals, browser panes and layout, whether you last touched it this morning or three weeks ago.

Conductor does document a view above the single workspace — Home in a Cloud organization, filtered by teammate and project. Be fair about that: it is a real cross-project list. It is also a Cloud feature aimed at a team’s work queue rather than a per-product home with tasks, layouts and browser context attached, and the docs show no provider usage windows on it.

## Where they overlap

Be honest: the overlap is larger than most pairings on this hub. Both are macOS-only native apps that run Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode in one window. Both give you a real terminal — Conductor’s Big Terminal Mode “replaces the center panel with a full terminal.” Both put a diff next to the agent that produced it, keep local model traffic going straight from your Mac to the provider, and expect you to bring your own subscriptions and keys. Both show provider limits with reset times — Conductor for Claude and Codex, each in its own chat’s context popover.

Conductor goes further into the git lifecycle: a worktree for every task, setup and archive scripts, checkpoints, pull requests, CI checks, merge blockers, cloud sandboxes, multiplayer, an API. CmdBrief does not claim any of those.

CmdBrief goes further into founder-portfolio territory: a persistent workspace per product, attention rolled up across products, provider usage windows from several vendors on one screen, and two CLIs Conductor does not list as harnesses. Conductor shows each vendor’s limits inside that vendor’s own chat; we found no view that puts them side by side. The [GUI comparison](https://cmdbrief.com/guides/claude-code-gui-mac) covers the wider field.

## What Conductor does that CmdBrief does not

- **A git worktree and branch per task, created automatically**, with setup and archive scripts and a `.worktreeinclude` for the untracked files a fresh tree needs. CmdBrief creates worktrees only for the code builders a lead agent starts; for your own panes you bring checkouts or run `claude --worktree`.
- **A documented path to a merged pull request**: comments back to the agent, a Checks tab for CI and review state, merge blockers, then archive. CmdBrief shows you the diff; it does not manage the pull request.
- **Checkpoints** that revert code and conversation to an earlier turn.
- **Cloud execution and team multiplayer**: isolated Linux sandboxes that keep running after the laptop closes, with shared workspaces, presence, following and reassignment. CmdBrief is local-first and single-operator; it is not a cloud agent orchestrator.
- **An HTTP API and an MCP server** for driving workspaces programmatically, and **bundled agent binaries** so Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode need no separate install. CmdBrief has a local MCP server too, but it stages workspace changes for your approval in the app and has no HTTP API.
- **A free tier.** CmdBrief has one paid plan and no free trial.

## What CmdBrief does that Conductor does not

Documented on CmdBrief’s site; not documented on the Conductor pages we fetched on 2026-09-29:

- **A persistent workspace per product**, not per branch: repos, tasks, terminals, diffs, browser panes and saved layouts that survive the task that created them.
- **Attention rolled up across several products**, so a blocked agent in a product you are not looking at cannot disappear. Conductor documents “Next chat needing attention” (⌘⌥L) and a Cloud Home view; neither is a per-product rollup.
- **Usage windows from several vendors side by side.** Conductor’s changelog documents Claude and Codex account limits and reset times, each in its own chat’s context popover. We found no view that puts several vendors on one screen — that is “not documented,” not “absent,” and it is why the cross-vendor row is a partial.
- **Grok CLI and Kimi CLI** as supervised agents, with session resume across all six CmdBrief CLIs from local metadata. Conductor’s harnesses are Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode; Grok models reach Conductor through the Cursor harness, which is not the same as supervising the Grok CLI.
- **Browser panes as embedded macOS webviews.** Conductor’s docs cover Preview URLs behind the terminal panel’s Open button; its changelog adds an in-app browser preview (⌘⇧B) for localhost pages, introduced as an experimental setting, so that row is a partial.

CmdBrief does not ship a worktree per task, pull-request management, cloud sandboxes, or multiplayer. Do not expect it to.

## Who should pick which

**Choose Conductor** if your day is one codebase and many parallel attempts at it: isolation without thinking about `git worktree add`, a review UI that sends comments back to the agent, and a merge you can trust. If a teammate has to pick up a run, or it has to survive a closed laptop, the paid cloud tier is the reason to pay.

**Choose CmdBrief** if your day is “I operate five products.” The question you cannot answer from a branch list is which product is blocked and which provider window you are about to run out of.

**Skip CmdBrief** if you are on Windows or Linux, on Intel Macs, or on macOS before 26; if one repository is the whole job; if you need the pull-request half of the workflow inside the app; or if a free tier is a hard requirement. If the question is really how to keep several sessions straight, start with [managing multiple Claude Code sessions on a Mac](https://cmdbrief.com/guides/manage-multiple-claude-code-sessions).

## Questions

### Is CmdBrief a Conductor alternative?

Only for part of the job. Conductor isolates each task in its own git worktree and walks it to a pull request; CmdBrief keeps a persistent workspace per product and rolls agent attention and provider usage up across all of them. If what you want is a worktree per task and a merge at the end, Conductor does that and CmdBrief does not.

### Does CmdBrief create git worktrees like Conductor?

Not per task. Conductor creates a worktree and branch for every workspace. CmdBrief creates them only for the code builders a lead agent starts in its crew, and each builder merges its own branch back; a pane you open yourself uses the checkout you give it, or run `claude --worktree` inside it. If automatic per-task isolation is the feature you are shopping for, that is a real reason to choose Conductor.

### Which agents does Conductor run?

Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode, per its harnesses documentation read on 2026-09-29. Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode come bundled with the app; Cursor runs Cursor Agent through the Cursor API. CmdBrief supervises Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI, Kimi CLI, OpenCode, and Cursor CLI.

### Does Conductor show provider usage limits?

Yes, for Claude and Codex, per its changelog read on 2026-09-29: hovering the context ring in a Codex chat shows account rate limits and reset times, and since 0.86.0 the context usage popover shows Claude account limits and reset times too. Each vendor’s limits sit in that vendor’s own chat; we found no view that puts them side by side. CmdBrief shows several vendors’ windows side by side where the provider reports them. Confirm in Conductor’s changelog before assuming either way.

### Can I run Conductor and CmdBrief on the same Mac?

Yes, and it is a sensible pairing. Conductor’s worktrees are ordinary git worktrees on disk, and CmdBrief opens ordinary checkouts. Use Conductor where one repository needs many parallel attempts, and CmdBrief as the place you see every product at once.

### Does Conductor run on Windows or Linux?

Not yet. Conductor’s install page states it is not available for Windows or Linux, and invites you to sign up to be notified. CmdBrief is Apple silicon on macOS 26+ only, so neither app helps if you are not on a Mac.

## Primary sources

Provider terms and product behavior can change. Confirm plan, pricing, model, and permission details in the current official documentation.

- [Conductor](https://www.conductor.build/)
- [Conductor docs](https://www.conductor.build/docs)
- [Conductor pricing](https://www.conductor.build/pricing)
- [Install Conductor](https://www.conductor.build/docs/installation)
- [Git worktrees](https://www.conductor.build/docs/concepts/git-worktrees)
- [Isolated workspaces](https://www.conductor.build/docs/concepts/workspaces-and-branches)
- [Harnesses](https://www.conductor.build/docs/reference/harnesses)
- [Diff viewer](https://www.conductor.build/docs/reference/diff-viewer)
- [Conductor changelog](https://www.conductor.build/changelog)
- [CmdBrief features](https://cmdbrief.com/features)
- [Claude Code GUI for Mac](https://cmdbrief.com/guides/claude-code-gui-mac)

## Keep reading

- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs Claude Desktop](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/claude-desktop)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs Cursor-as-workspace](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/cursor)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs Warp](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/warp)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs Ghostty](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/ghostty)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs iTerm + tmux + Claude Code](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/iterm)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs opcode (Claudia)](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/opcode)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs Emdash](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/emdash)
- Comparisons: [CmdBrief vs JetBrains Air](https://cmdbrief.com/compare/jetbrains-air)
- Comparisons: [Compare hub](https://cmdbrief.com/compare)
- Comparisons: [Claude Code GUI for Mac: the options compared (2026)](https://cmdbrief.com/guides/claude-code-gui-mac)
- Workflows: [How to run Claude Code and Codex in parallel without chaos](https://cmdbrief.com/guides/run-claude-code-and-codex-in-parallel)

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