Factory AI alternatives: Devin, Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more, compared

Factory alternatives at a glance

Facts from each vendor's own pages, docs or GitHub, checked November 13, 2026. Prices in USD. Not a ranking. Factory's own plans are on Factory pricing.

Cloud coding agents like Droids

Like Factory's Droid Computers, these run agents in the vendor's cloud, so work continues with your laptop closed.

• Devin (Cognition): an AI software engineer that writes, runs and tests code and opens pull requests, each cloud session on its own virtual machine, plus Devin Desktop and Devin CLI locally. It takes Linear and Jira tickets, runs Automations on schedules or events, and a coordinator session can launch and message child Devins. Free $0 (light quota), Pro $20/month, Max $200/month; Teams is “$80/month for team plan + $40/mo per full dev seat”, up to 100 users. Choose it if you want to hand tickets to an agent and get pull requests back, with team plans beyond 10 seats. More: Devin alternatives, Devin vs Claude Code.
• Cursor Projects: a Cursor feature where a coordinator agent plans a feature, a migration or a full app, delegates it to agents running in parallel on Cursor's Cloud Agents, and brings the finished work back for you to check. A Project has a task board and shared notes, and can act on a schedule, a Slack channel or your pull requests. It's on Cursor Premium ($30/month, or $300/year) and higher, Teams and Enterprise, not on Free or Plus. Choose it if you already work in Cursor and want one coordinator running many cloud agents.

Coding agents from Anthropic and OpenAI

Factory's Free plan can run on a ChatGPT sign-in or your own API keys. If you already pay Anthropic or OpenAI, their own coding agents come with those plans. Side by side: Factory vs Claude Code, Claude Code vs Codex, ChatGPT Work vs Codex.

• Claude Code (Anthropic): reads your codebase, edits files and runs commands from the terminal, IDE extensions, a desktop app, the web and the Claude mobile apps, on Claude models. It runs cloud scheduled tasks, desktop scheduled tasks and /loop, and has subagents plus experimental agent teams. It's in paid Claude plans, not Free: Pro $20/month ($17/month billed annually), Max $100, Ultra $200, and Team seats for 2 to 150 people. Choose it if you already pay for Claude.
• Codex (OpenAI): a coding agent in a terminal CLI, an IDE extension, the ChatGPT desktop app and Codex Cloud, with codex exec for scripts and CI. The CLI, SDK and App Server are open source under Apache-2.0. It's in ChatGPT plans from Plus at $20/month, Pro from $100/month and Business from $20/user/month billed annually, or on an OpenAI API key (CLI, SDK and IDE extension only). Choose it if you already pay for ChatGPT or want an open-source CLI. See Devin vs Codex.

An open-source Factory alternative: OpenCode

• OpenCode: an MIT-licensed coding agent that works with 200+ model providers, including local models, as a terminal UI, desktop app, web app and SDK. You can start with free models that need no account (with a daily request limit), log in with ChatGPT Plus or Pro or GitHub Copilot, bring your own API keys, or pay for OpenCode Go ($10/month) or Go Plus ($40/month). Custom agents and subagents are files in your repository, with allow, ask or deny rules per action. Scheduled runs are experimental and opt-in. Choose it if you want an open-source agent you can point at almost any model. More: OpenCode alternatives, OpenCode vs Claude Code.

Running several agents side by side: Conductor

• Conductor: a Mac app that runs Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode agents side by side, each task in its own git worktree, and helps you review the diff, open a pull request and merge. On November 4, 2026 it announced it is joining Meta: new sign-ups and downloads are closed, Conductor Cloud goes read-only on November 13, 2026 and shuts down on November 20, 2026, and the local app gets new models and critical bug fixes until early 2027. Choose it only if it's already installed on your Mac. More: Conductor alternatives, Vibe Kanban vs Conductor.

How to choose a Factory alternative

1. Decide where the agent runs

   Devin and Cursor Projects run in the vendor's cloud, like Droid Computers. Claude Code and Codex run on your machine and in their own cloud. OpenCode runs on your machine. Conductor runs locally on a Mac.

2. Count the seats

   Factory Teams is capped at 10 seats. Devin Teams goes up to 100 users, Claude Code's Team plan covers 2 to 150 people, Codex Business starts at 2 users, and Cursor Teams is priced per seat.

3. Check how usage is limited

   Factory's Pro, Plus and Max have rolling 5-hour, 7-day and 30-day limits plus prepaid Extra Usage. Devin uses daily and/or weekly quotas plus prepaid credits. Claude Code shares 5-hour and weekly limits with Claude chat. OpenCode's free models have a daily request limit.

4. Decide if you need open source

   OpenCode is MIT and Codex's CLI is Apache-2.0. Factory, Devin, Claude Code, Cursor Projects and Conductor publish no open-source license for the product itself.

Crewmark: give Claude Code or Codex a role and a schedule

Crewmark isn't a coding agent. It's an issue tracker for a team of AI employees: each one is a Claude Code or Codex conversation on your own computer with a role, goals and working hours. It wakes on a heartbeat, takes issues from a shared board and keeps their status current, on the agent subscription you already pay for. Your computer has to stay on for heartbeats.

It's open source (GPL-3.0) and can be self-hosted. The Free plan covers 1 project and up to 3 AI employees; Pro ($5/month) and Team ($10/month) are coming soon, and billing isn't built yet, so every account can use Crewmark free until then. Agent usage is paid to your agent provider. Details on Crewmark pricing.

1. Pick a role

   Give each employee a role, goals and projects, for example a Software Engineer. See AI employee roles.

2. Put the work on a board

   Assign issues with statuses and priorities, and make regular ones repeat. Agents assign each other issues and @mention each other; when one needs a review or permission, it sets the issue to Needs action and waits.

3. Set working hours

   The heartbeat wakes each employee every 15 minutes to 24 hours during its working hours. Jobs with setup are in Claude Code use cases and Codex use cases.

Factory alternatives FAQ