Conductor's local tier is free (bring your own Claude login). Pro is $50/month for cloud workspaces and Teams is $60/user/month. dev-mux Solo is $25/month for a dedicated hub over your own machines.

← All comparisons

Compare · Deep dive

dev-mux vs Conductor

Q: Does my code leave my machine with Conductor?

On the free local tier, no — everything runs on your Mac. On the Pro cloud tier, workspaces run on Melty's infrastructure, so your code lives on their servers. dev-mux never moves your code: spokes are your machines and the hub never stores code.

Q: Can I use Conductor and dev-mux together?

Somewhat — they barely overlap in territory. Conductor manages its own workspaces inside the Mac app, so dev-mux can't adopt those directly; but the same Mac can also be a dev-mux spoke for tmux sessions, and many people will simply use Conductor on the Mac and dev-mux for everything else.

Conductor (by Melty Labs, $22M Series A) is the best-known name in Mac agent orchestration: every agent gets its own git worktree, terminal, and preview server, with a polished review-and-merge flow — free for local use, with a new Pro cloud tier at $50/mo. dev-mux plays a different position: not a workspace app on one Mac, but a control plane over every machine you own.

TL;DR — If your whole agent workflow lives on one Mac and you want the slickest parallel-worktree experience there, Conductor's free tier is hard to argue with. If your agents are spread across Linux boxes, cloud VMs, and that Mac — and you want an always-on picture of all of them, from any device, without your code moving to anyone's cloud — that's dev-mux.

What Conductor actually is

A local-first Mac desktop app: each agent runs in its own worktree copy of your repo with per-workspace setup scripts, a terminal, and a preview server, and you review side-by-side diffs before merging. It uses your existing Claude Code login with no inference markup, and ships fast — eight releases in July alone. The new Pro tier ($50/mo) adds cloud workspaces on Melty's infrastructure, multiplayer, an API, and a mobile app marked "coming soon"; Teams is $60/user/mo.

At a glance

As of July 31, 2026. If something here is stale, tell us.

	dev-mux	Conductor
What it is	Self-hosted fleet control plane	Mac app for parallel agent workspaces
Scope	Every machine, repo, and agent you own	One Mac (local) or their cloud (Pro)
Platforms	Hub + spokes on Linux/macOS; surfaces everywhere	macOS client only
Where code runs	Your machines; hub never stores code	Your Mac — or Melty's cloud on Pro
Always-on state	Hub polls every box; stale flagged in seconds	App must be open on the Mac
Attention signals	Claude Code hook-level (waiting / done / error) + escalation	Per-workspace monitoring; no documented hook signals
Away from keyboard	iOS, TUI, browser, glasses, Telegram today	Mobile app “coming soon” (Pro)
Worktrees	dev wt — worktree sessions on any spoke	Worktree per agent on the Mac
Price	Solo $25/mo · Team $100/mo	Free local · Pro $50/mo · Teams $60/user/mo

Where Conductor shines

The one-Mac experience — worktree-per-agent with setup scripts, preview servers, and a genuinely good diff-review-then-merge loop.
Velocity and polish — near-weekly releases, day-one support for new Claude models, and the resources of a $22M Series A behind it.
A free local tier — if you never leave one Mac, you may never pay.

Where dev-mux is a different layer

The fleet is the product. Conductor orchestrates agents on the Mac in front of you. dev-mux's hub is awake regardless — polling every spoke, aggregating every agent, flagging stale state in seconds, and pushing attention signals to whatever surface you carry.
Scaling out means your hardware, not theirs. Conductor's growth path is its cloud tier — workspaces on Melty's infrastructure. dev-mux's is the opposite: add your own boxes as spokes over your own tailnet; code never leaves your perimeter.
Linux is a first-class citizen. Headless servers, cloud VMs, Raspberry Pis — anything with bash 3.2 + tmux + git joins the fleet. Conductor has no Linux client at all.
Away-from-keyboard is shipped, not promised. iOS app, browser cockpit, TUI, glasses, Telegram — versus a mobile app still marked “coming soon.”

Common questions

Is Conductor free?

The local tier is free (BYO Claude login); Pro is $50/mo, Teams $60/user/mo. dev-mux Solo is $25/mo for a dedicated hub over your own machines.

Does my code leave my machine with Conductor?

Locally, no. On the Pro cloud tier, workspaces run on Melty's infrastructure. dev-mux never moves your code — spokes are your machines, and the hub never stores code.

Can I use Conductor and dev-mux together?

They barely overlap in territory: Conductor manages its own workspaces inside the app, but the same Mac can also be a dev-mux spoke for tmux sessions — Conductor for the Mac, dev-mux for everything.

Conductor conducts one Mac. dev-mux runs the whole orchestra.

Get early access

Written 2026-07-31 against Conductor's public site, pricing, and release notes. Conductor is a trademark of its owners; no affiliation or endorsement implied. Corrections welcome.