What are the top ADEs for 2026

The short answer

An agentic development environment (ADE) is an app built to run and supervise coding agents, rather than an editor with an assistant on the side. You hand work to one or more agents, and the app keeps their changes apart, shows you what each is doing and helps you decide what to keep.

As of October 29, 2026, against the criteria below, our ranking is:

1. AgentGrid: a lead agent runs a team of different companies' agents that review each other, on one canvas.
2. Orca: free and open source, with a separate worktree for every task.
3. Conductor: the most polished path from worktree to merged pull request, on a Mac.
4. Warp: a full terminal for third-party agents, plus cloud orchestration.
5. Emdash: free and open source, with pull requests and CI in the same app.
6. Cursor (Agents Window): Cursor's own agent across local, cloud and remote machines, with verifier subagents.
7. Herdr: a terminal runtime that keeps agents running when you close the window.

We make AgentGrid, and we rank it first. Below we explain why, and where each alternative is the better choice. Every fact about another product comes from that company's own site, checked October 29, 2026. Prices and features change often, so check the linked page before you buy.

This page is for developers. If you are a founder or domain expert who would rather not live in a terminal, read Top 5 ADEs for founders and non-developers instead.

The quick pick

How we chose and ranked them

We looked at twelve tools: AgentGrid, Orca, Conductor, Paradev (formerly Superset), Warp, Emdash, Herdr, cmux, OpenHands Agent Canvas, Cursor's Agents Window, JetBrains Air and Devin Desktop. We read each one's own site and docs and scored it on eight things:

• Agents supported, and mixing them. Which coding agents does it run, and can agents from different companies work on the same job?
• Parallel work and isolation. Can several agents work at once without stepping on each other's files, for example in separate Git worktrees?
• Agents reviewing agents. Can one agent check another's work, and does an agent run that loop or do you?
• Visibility. Can you see what every agent is doing, and their changes, without hunting through tabs?
• Platforms. macOS, Windows and Linux.
• Your own subscriptions. Do agents run on the Claude, ChatGPT or other plans you already pay for?
• Open source. Can you read and change the code?
• Price. What it costs on top of your AI plans.

The ranking puts the most weight on mixing agents and having them review each other, because that is what separates an ADE from a single agent in a terminal. If open source or a Mac-only, pull-request-first workflow matters more to you, the order changes, and each section says when.

1. AgentGrid

What it is. In its own docs, "an infinite canvas desktop app for running and orchestrating AI coding agents." It supports eleven agents: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Antigravity, Cursor, Devin, Grok, Hermes, Kimi, Pi and Muse Code. A Coordinator in a side panel manages your teams across a project, or across every local project, from one conversation.

Who it fits. Developers who already use more than one coding agent and want them working as a team, with one checking another, on their own computer and subscriptions.

Strengths

• Different companies' agents on one team. A team lead "plans and coordinates; each worker handles a bounded task in its own visible pane." The lead picks the agent for each worker, and workers can use every installed agent except Muse Code. The docs' own example is "a Claude builder, Codex reviewer, and OpenCode validator."
• Agents review agents. From the prompts you give it, the lead runs the review loop AgentGrid documents: a builder implements, QA, validation and security reviewers check the change, the lead sends the findings "back to the same builder," and the same reviewers recheck the new revision "until each gives a shipping verdict." In AgentGrid's words: "Different harnesses or models can review the same diff independently."
• Everything on one canvas. Each agent works in its own pane. A Source Control pane lets you "Review the agent's worktrees, diffs, commits, and pull requests," and a terminal, a Chromium browser with DevTools and Markdown notes sit on the same canvas.
• Issue to pull request built in. Every project gets the skills /ship, /ticket, /worktree, /pr and /review-pr "for taking a change from issue to merged pull request."
• Every desktop, natively on Arm. macOS 12 or later, Windows 10 and 11 (x64) and Windows 11 on Arm, and Ubuntu or Debian Linux on x86_64 and arm64. "Arm builds run natively, not through emulation." iPhone and Android apps, in beta, let you read agent conversations and send prompts away from your desk.
• Your subscriptions. "Use the subscriptions and keys you already have." Each agent reuses its own login rather than asking you to paste credentials into each pane.

Limits

• Worktrees on request, not per task. The docs we checked do not describe an automatic worktree for every task. AgentGrid's Claude Code and Codex guide has the lead create a dedicated worktree for the builder, and notes that a reviewer's no-edit prompt "does not create a filesystem permission boundary." Orca, Conductor and Emdash give every task its own worktree by design.
• Not every agent can lead. Every installed agent except Muse Code can be a worker, but only Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Devin, Grok and Kimi can run as the team lead.
• An account and two bills. "The desktop app requires an AgentGrid account," and "AI subscriptions and API usage are paid separately to your providers."
• Phone needs the computer. In the mobile beta, your computer has to stay awake and online; the phone cannot run agents on its own.

Price. Free ($0: 3 projects, up to 10 parallel agents each), or Pro at $32.50/mo billed annually ($390/yr). Your AI subscriptions are billed separately by each provider.

Why it ranks first. Of the seven, it is the only one whose docs describe three things together. First, a lead agent that, from the prompts you give it, starts workers on different companies' agents, sends the reviewers' findings back to the same builder and has the same reviewers recheck. Second, agents running on your own computer with subscriptions you already pay for. Third, native builds for macOS, Windows and Linux. Warp's cloud orchestration comes closest on mixing agents; its docs do not say whether third-party agents use your own subscriptions. If open source or a worktree for every task matters most, Orca or Emdash is the better pick.

2. Orca

What it is. "The agent IDE" from Stably AI. Its README calls it "the place for working with a fleet of agents," free and open source under the MIT License.

Who it fits. Developers who want free, open-source software, a separate worktree for every task, and the widest list of agents.

Strengths

• A worktree for every task. "Every task gets its own git worktree, its own agent terminal, and its own browser tab."
• Best-of-N across agents. "Fan one prompt across five agents, each in its own isolated git worktree," then "compare the results and merge the winner."
• The widest agent list. Its site names 27 agents and its README 34, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Grok and Pi, and it "Works with any CLI agent."
• Your subscriptions. "Run any coding agent with your own subscription." The docs also cover switching Codex accounts and tracking usage and rate limits.
• Runs where you need it. Desktop on macOS, Windows and Linux, a mobile companion for iOS and Android, and agents over SSH, on a self-hosted Orca server or on cloud VMs you control.
• Review the diff yourself. "Drop comments on any diff line and ship them back to the agent."

Limits

• Multi-agent orchestration is experimental. Orca's "structured multi-agent layer" runs through a command-line tool, and you turn it on first under Settings, Experimental. Workers can be different agents (--agent codex, --agent claude).
• Agent review not described. The pages we checked describe no reviewer worker and no agent reviewing another's work. Review is something you do.

Price. "Free and open source for macOS, Windows, and Linux."

Better than AgentGrid when you want free, MIT-licensed software, a worktree for every task without asking, or the same prompt run across several agents to pick the best result.

3. Conductor

What it is. A Mac app to "Run multiple coding agents in parallel," with each piece of work in its own workspace.

Who it fits. Mac developers whose work runs through branches and pull requests.

Strengths

• Isolation by default. Each workspace gets its own branch and working tree, so its files and changes stay separate.
• Agent review, set up by you. The docs list "One agent implementing while another reviews the same diff" and "Multi-agent review of one branch before opening a pull request." A Review action runs "an agent review."
• A clean path to merge. Diff comments "become composer attachments that you can send back to the agent that made the change." You open a pull request from the app, and a Checks tab lets you "inspect git status, CI, deployments, comments, and todos before you merge."
• Your subscriptions. It checks for your Claude Code and Codex logins, or a Cursor API key, and the Free plan says "Bring your own subscriptions and keys."
• Cloud workspaces on Pro. Each runs in a Vercel sandbox, and the work continues if you close the app.

Limits

• Mac only. "Conductor is not available for Windows or Linux yet."
• You coordinate. The pages we checked describe no lead agent that starts or assigns other agents. You create each workspace and give each agent its context.
• GitHub required. Setup needs GitHub authentication plus at least one agent.
• Cloud and mobile cost extra. Cloud workspaces and the mobile app come with Pro.

Price. Free ($0). Pro $50/mo. Teams $60/mo per user.

Better than AgentGrid when you are on a Mac, your workflow is branch to pull request to merge, and you want CI and review comments in the same place as your agents.

4. Warp

What it is. "An open-source terminal built for AI-assisted software development," plus a cloud platform where agents can start other agents.

Who it fits. Developers who want their agents inside a full-featured terminal, and teams that want agents to fan work out to cloud environments.

Strengths

• Sixteen third-party agents, enhanced. Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor CLI, Gemini CLI, Pi, Antigravity, Hermes and more. Warp "auto-detects supported CLI agents and enhances them with IDE-level features": "a rich input editor, agent notifications, inline code review, Remote Control, and more."
• Builder and reviewer, locally. Warp's guide describes "One agent implements while another reviews, writes tests, or checks edge cases," with one worktree per agent and a Code Review panel to "compare their diffs side-by-side."
• Agents that start agents, in the cloud. Orchestration "lets one agent spawn and coordinate other agents to parallelize work." "Children can also run with a different agent runtime than the parent," for example Claude Code or Codex, and you approve before children launch.
• Every desktop, x86 and Arm. "macOS (Intel and Apple silicon), Windows (x86_64 and ARM64), and Linux (x86_64 and ARM64)."
• Open-source terminal. The terminal's code is on GitHub.

Limits

• Locally, you are the coordinator. In local sessions you decide who owns which task, create each worktree with git worktree add and launch each agent in its own tab.
• Subscriptions not described. The agent docs do not say whether Claude Code, Codex and the others use your own subscriptions. Each orchestrated run has its own usage charges.
• Usage-based plans. Paid plans include a dollar amount of agent usage each month, with more at pay-as-you-go rates.

Price. Free ($0). Build $20/mo, or $18/mo billed annually, with $20 of agent usage. Max $200/mo. Business $50/user/mo.

Better than AgentGrid when you want a full terminal as your home base, or want agents that spawn other agents in cloud environments.

5. Emdash

What it is. "Open-source agentic development environment," licensed Apache 2.0.

Who it fits. Developers who want free, open-source software that takes each task from worktree to merged pull request.

Strengths

• Many agents. "Emdash works with 25+ coding agents," including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Amp, Devin, Qwen Code, Droid and GitHub Copilot.
• A worktree for every task. "Each task runs in its own Git worktree," with its own branch, terminal, conversation and review state.
• Pull requests and CI in one place. "Review diffs, create pull requests, inspect CI checks, and merge from one place."
• Remote machines. "Connect to remote machines with SSH/SFTP and run the same parallel workflow on remote codebases."
• Every desktop. macOS, Windows and Linux, with Linux builds for x64 and ARM64.
• Bring your own access. "You need either an API key or a subscription with the provider of the coding agent you want to use."

Limits

• No agent review described. The pages we checked describe agents working in parallel, not one agent reviewing another's work.

Price. Described as "a free, open-source agentic development environment." No paid plan is described in pages we checked.

Better than AgentGrid when you want free, Apache-2.0 software with a worktree per task and your pull requests and CI checks in the same window.

6. Cursor (Agents Window)

What it is. "Cursor's agent-first interface": a workspace to build with agents across repos and environments, "including local, cloud, remote SSH, and more."

Who it fits. Developers happy with one vendor's agent and many models, who want cloud agents that report back with evidence.

Strengths

• Isolation and scale. Agents can "run agents in isolated Git checkouts," and cloud agents "run in isolated VMs in the cloud with full development environments."
• Cloud agents that show their work. "Agents produce screenshots, videos, and logs so you can see exactly what changed and how the agent verified its work." Start them from iOS, the web, the desktop app, Slack, GitHub, Linear or the API.
• Built-in checkers. Subagents run "simultaneously," each with its own model, and the docs include a "skeptical validator" and a code-reviewer. Bugbot "reviews pull requests and identifies bugs, security issues, and code quality problems," and Autofix "spawns a Cloud Agent to fix bugs."
• Every desktop. Installs on Mac, Windows and Linux.

Limits

• One company's agent. The Agents Window page names no third-party agents such as Claude Code or Codex. Subagents can read .claude/agents/ and .codex/agents/ files "for compatibility," but Cursor's agent runs them.
• Your subscriptions, mostly not. "Custom API keys only work with chat models," and the pages we checked do not describe using a Claude or ChatGPT subscription.
• Cloud costs more. Cloud agents need Premium or higher. Bugbot "uses usage-based billing."

Price. Free ($0). Plus $8/mo ("Only Grok models are available on this plan"). Premium $30/mo, with cloud agents. Super $100/mo. Ultra $200/mo.

Better than AgentGrid when you want one vendor's agent with many models, cloud agents in VMs that come back with screenshots and video, or an automatic pull request reviewer.

7. Herdr

What it is. "A server running in the background, and the terminals live inside it." Your agents run in Herdr's terminals, inside the terminal you already use. Apache 2.0.

Who it fits. Terminal-first developers who want agents to keep working through closed laptops and dropped connections.

Strengths

• Agents keep running. "Close the lid or drop the network and the agents keep working."
• Status at a glance. "Herdr reads every pane and marks each agent working, blocked or idle," with 22 agents detected out of the box, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and Grok.
• Building blocks for teams. Through its CLI and socket API, agents can "split panes, start each other, prompt each other."
• Fits your setup. "Herdr changes nothing about your terminal," and it reaches wherever a terminal and SSH do, on macOS, Linux and Windows.

Limits

• Primitives, not a workflow. The pages we checked describe no built-in lead agent or review loop; you build those from the CLI and socket API.
• No built-in worktrees. Herdr "pairs happily with a worktree manager" rather than including one.
• Terminal only. No graphical canvas or diff view is described; Herdr Cloud is "coming soon."
• Subscriptions not described. Whether agents use your own subscriptions is not described in pages we checked.

Price. No pricing is listed. The software is open source.

Better than AgentGrid when you work over SSH, want agents to survive the window closing, and prefer to script your own team from terminal primitives.

Also considered

• Paradev (formerly Superset) offers "One workspace for Claude Code, Codex, and any coding agent," says "Each task gets its own isolated Git worktree," uses "your existing agent subscriptions and API keys" and "never proxies model calls." It runs on macOS with an experimental Linux AppImage ("Windows is not yet available"), is source-available under the Elastic License 2.0, and costs $0, or $20/mo per user for Pro ($16 billed yearly). Pick it on a Mac if you want worktree-per-task and source you can read.
• cmux is an "Open source Ghostty-based macOS terminal with vertical tabs and notifications for AI coding agents," free under GPL-3.0-or-later. "macOS only, for now." Pick it if you want a fast native Mac terminal that flags which agent needs you.
• OpenHands Agent Canvas runs Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and other Agent Client Protocol agents with "your existing subscription," and is "Fully open source." Its product page says you "Run multiple agents simultaneously, each isolated in its own git worktree," while its docs describe "a browser client" with "a preview build of the native desktop app" and do not cover parallel agents or worktrees. We left it out of the ranking until the two agree.
• JetBrains Air "Works with the agents you already use," naming Claude Agent, Codex, Junie, Copilot and OpenCode, lets you "Bring your existing provider subscription or API keys," and says "Agents run in the cloud." Its page lists JetBrains IDEs, web, CLI and mobile ("coming soon"); desktop platforms and pricing are not described in pages we checked.
• Devin Desktop is "the new name for Windsurf," an "AI IDE with Devin built in" that "supports Codex, Claude Agent, OpenCode, and any other ACP-compatible agents," runs sessions "on your machine or in Devin Cloud," and includes "Devin Review: Code review on every diff." Its page offers "Download for MacOS." Free $0, Pro $20/mo, Max $200/mo. Pick it if you want an editor with Cognition's own agent at the center.

Who each is for

• AgentGrid: you want a team of agents from different companies, led by an agent, that check each other's work on your own computer and subscriptions.
• Orca: you want free, open-source software with a worktree for every task and the longest agent list.
• Conductor: you are on a Mac and live in branches, pull requests and CI.
• Warp: you want a full terminal around your agents, or cloud agents that start other agents.
• Emdash: you want free, Apache-2.0 software that takes each task from worktree to merge.
• Cursor: you want one vendor's agent with many models and cloud agents that show their work.
• Herdr: you live in the terminal and over SSH, and want agents that never stop when the window does.

Side by side

Next step

If you run more than one coding agent today, the question is not which agent is best. It is who carries the work between them and who checks it. In most of these tools, that is still you.

Download AgentGrid, open a project you know well, and ask a lead agent for one small change with a Claude Code builder and a Codex reviewer. Watch the reviewer's findings go back to the builder and the reviewer recheck the fix. If that loop saves you the copying between terminals, you have your answer.

If you want free, open-source software with a worktree for every task, try Orca or Emdash first. If you are on a Mac and live in pull requests, try Conductor.

Sources

Checked October 29, 2026.

• AgentGrid: agentgrid.sh, docs, pricing, agents and workers, orchestrating agents, Claude Code and Codex, panes, system requirements, CLI prerequisites, mobile apps, account and billing
• Orca: onorca.dev, docs, orchestration, GitHub
• Conductor: installation, parallel agents, workflow, pricing
• Warp: warp.dev, CLI agents, multiple agents guide, orchestration, installation, pricing
• Emdash: emdash.com, GitHub
• Cursor: Agents Window, cloud agents, subagents, Bugbot, API keys, install, pricing
• Herdr: herdr.dev, compare
• Paradev: paradev.com, pricing
• cmux: GitHub
• OpenHands Agent Canvas: product page, docs
• JetBrains Air: jetbrains.com/air
• Devin Desktop: devin.ai/desktop, announcement