Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Conductor vs Rovo Dev CLI

Rovo Dev CLI scores 44.1 (E) on agent readiness against Conductor's 41.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Conductor leads on schema & documentation. Both do agent harnesses.

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Which one, for what

Conductor E

Best for Existing Conductor users planning their move before Cloud closes on 20 November 2026 and the local app winds down in early 2027.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 60 against 45

Watch for

No new downloads or sign-ups since 4 November 2026

Rovo Dev CLI E

Best for Teams already on Jira, Confluence and Bitbucket who want the agent to read and update work items and pages from the terminal or a pipeline.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 35 against 25
  • Payments & pricing, 15 against 0
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 53

Watch for

Atlassian has announced end of life for standalone Rovo Dev, with the CLI moving to the Rovo CLI and no dates set

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Schema & documentation Conductor +15

Conductor 60

Harness reading. Docs for workspaces, review and merge, a Conductor API reference page linked from the docs (not read), and security and permissions pages (60).

Rovo Dev CLI 45

Framework reading. Server mode lists its /v3 endpoints with request bodies, and an Atlassian engineering post of 27 October 2025 says Swagger docs are served at localhost:<port>/docs. That contract is only visible on a running server, and no schema for the SSE events or the config file was published (12). No llms.txt on support.atlassian.com or developer.atlassian.com, and no Markdown twins found (0). The tools page says what allow, ask and deny do, what YOLO mode skips and that MCP tools keep their permissions, and the settings page gives each default. Little says when not to use a mode (12). Permission levels, console output formats and tool names are enumerated in the settings reference with defaults (10). Server mode has curl, Python and JavaScript examples. No exit codes or error responses are documented beyond the post's note that a failed entitlement check disables every endpoint except healthcheck and shutdown (7). The API path is versioned (/v3), but there is no public changelog for Rovo Dev builds (4). 12+0+12+10+7+4 = 45.

Payments & pricing Rovo Dev CLI +15

Conductor 0

No new sign-ups since 4 November, free users can't upgrade, and no price is shown. No protocol, no published price, no open free tier, no onboarding (0).

Rovo Dev CLI 15

Harness reading of the published rubric, scored on the Rovo Dev subscription the CLI needs. No payment protocol (0). Rovo Dev Standard is $20 a developer a month with 2,000 credits and extra credits are $0.01, both public. The credit multiplier for each model is shown only inside the CLI, and a task is given only as a range (5 to 50 tasks per 2,000 credits), so a run's cost can't be worked out before signing up. Judgement call between the 10 for plan-only pricing and the full 20 (15). Rovo Dev Free gives 350 credits a month, but only on Jira Standard or Premium sites, which are paid plans, and the 30-day Standard trial excludes the CLI (0). An organisation admin activates Rovo Dev and the user creates an API token in a browser (0). 0+15+0+0 = 15.

Reliability Rovo Dev CLI +10

Conductor 25

Read as local software that is winding down. Installed from Conductor's own download, which stopped taking new users on 4 November 2026 (10). Closed source, so no public CI or issue tracker (0, 0). A dated changelog, newest 0.93.0 on 4 November (15). Version 0.93 (0). 10 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 25.

Rovo Dev CLI 35

Local-package reading, the same as the other closed-source harnesses. Rovo Dev ships inside the Atlassian CLI, which installs from a Homebrew tap with SHA-256 checksums, signed apt and yum repositories and curl downloads for macOS, Linux and Windows on amd64 and arm64, and Rovo Dev downloads itself on first use (20). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). No public issue tracker. The Rovo Dev community board was last active on 16 January 2026, and bugs otherwise go to /feedback and Atlassian Support, so open crash reports can't be counted (8). Rovo Dev builds moved from 0.13.x to date-based versions such as 202604.30.2 and 202610.16.1b1, per AtlasCode's changelog and manifest, and have no public changelog, and the Atlassian CLI changelog stops at v1.3.15 while its repository serves 1.3.39 (2). Rovo Dev has been rolling out as a product since October 2025, but the version number carries no stability signal and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life. Judgement call (5). The CLI runs against Atlassian's hosted service, and the Rovo status page has no Rovo Dev component. 20+0+8+2+5 = 35.

Transparency & trust Rovo Dev CLI +10

Conductor 53

Closed service with terms and privacy pages (15). The transition notice says when Cloud data deletion begins (20 November) and that all user data is deleted when the app shuts down in early 2027 (20 of 30). Dated shutdown notice (15 of 20). SOC 2 report on a trust portal, subprocessors not read (10 of 20). 15 + 20 + 15 + 10 = 60.

Rovo Dev CLI 63

Proprietary, with clear terms. The Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026), which say Input and Output are Customer Data and that subcontractors may not train on them (15). The Rovo privacy page keeps Chat and agent inputs and outputs for 30 days and says Rovo has SOC 2, ISO 27001 and data residency, while the Rovo Dev rollout page (modified 27 August 2026) says Rovo Dev has none of the three. We found no retention period for Rovo Dev sessions sent to Atlassian (12). The licensing FAQ promises at least 60 days' notice before Rovo Dev's end of life and dates the Code Reviewer move to 3 December 2026, but gives no date for the CLI's move to the Rovo CLI. Each Atlassian CLI version is supported for six months (14). No telemetry description or opt-out for the CLI was found. AtlasCode's changelog documents Rovo Dev telemetry events in the IDE, which this listing doesn't cover (0). 15+12+14+0 = 41.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runConductorRovo Dev CLIEdge
Reliability16%202535Rovo Dev CLI +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26045Conductor +15
Agent ergonomics13%16.25553Conductor +2
Security & auth14%17.54548Rovo Dev CLI +3
Payments & pricing10%12.5015Rovo Dev CLI +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85861Rovo Dev CLI +3
Transparency & trust7%8.85363Rovo Dev CLI +10
Negative events≤1500
TotalE 41.3/100E 44.1/100

Facts side by side

FactConductorRovo Dev CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorConductor (joining Meta)Atlassian
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPaidPaid
x402nono
LicenceProprietary. A closed-source Mac app and hosted Conductor Cloud under Conductor's termsProprietary, under the Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the Atlassian AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026). No source is published
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-042026-10-16
Terms last updatednot read yetno date given
Privacy policy last updatednot read yetcouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetnot found in the text
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Conductor

No score change since it was listed.

Rovo Dev CLI

Verdicts

Conductor

Conductor ran parallel coding agents on the Mac, and Meta is acquiring it. It has taken no new users since 4 November 2026, Cloud turns read-only on 13 November and shuts down on 20 November, and the local app winds down in early 2027, when all user data is deleted.

Rovo Dev CLI

Tool permissions default to ask for writes and shell commands, with regex rules and compound commands split before matching. It needs a paid Atlassian plan with Rovo Dev, has no customer sandbox or public changelog, and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life as the CLI moves to the Rovo CLI.

Before you call either

Conductor

  1. Export your data from Settings, Account, Export data before 20 November 2026
  2. Move Cloud workspaces to your Mac with Transfer to local before 13 November
  3. Plan a move off the local app before early 2027; see the agent-harnesses category for alternatives

Rovo Dev CLI

  1. Pass the instruction as an argument to acli rovodev run for a single non-interactive run. No JSON output flag or exit codes are documented
  2. Use acli rovodev serve <port> and stream /v3/stream_chat?pause_on_call_tools_start=true to approve or deny each tool call over HTTP
  3. Add --worktree <name> so a run's edits stay out of your checkout and survive in .rovodev/worktrees/<name>
  4. Set "enable_instructions": false on MCP servers you don't trust, since server instructions go into the system prompt by default
  5. Check /usage before long runs. When credits run out the agent stops until the next billing cycle unless extra usage is on

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Conductor or Rovo Dev CLI?

Rovo Dev CLI scores 44.1 (E) on agent readiness against Conductor's 41.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Conductor leads on schema & documentation.

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