Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
Conductor vs Verdent
Conductor scores 41.3 (E) on agent readiness against Verdent's 39.7 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Verdent leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
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 55
- Agent ergonomics, 55 against 35
- Security & auth, 45 against 33
Watch for
No new downloads or sign-ups since 4 November 2026
Verdent E
Best for A person who wants a desktop app to plan and run several coding tasks at once, possibly on their own Claude Code or Codex.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 43 against 25
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 0
Watch for
No CLI, print mode, API or SDK, so a pipeline can't start or read a run except through a paired chat bot
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.
Agent ergonomics Conductor +20
Conductor 55
Harness reading. Each task gets a workspace, branch, terminal and diff, with pull requests and merges from the app, and an API for integrations; not re-read in detail (55).
Verdent 35
Harness reading. MCP servers per project or globally, subagents, skills and rules, but no per-tool disabling or deferred loading found (10). No output-size, turn-limit or budget controls for a run were found beyond credit balances (5). No exit codes or error format, since there is no headless mode (3). Parallel workers in git worktrees and a review column make runs reviewable and reversible, with no resume by ID documented (10). No CLI, API or SDK. A pipeline can only reach Manager through a paired Telegram, Slack or Feishu bot (7). 10+5+3+10+7 = 35.
Payments & pricing Verdent +20
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).
Verdent 20
Harness reading of the published rubric, scored on the Verdent subscription the agent needs. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices from $5 a month, top-up prices and the credit value of about $0.059 are public without a login (20). Free Mode and the free trial ended on 29 October 2026, so there is no free tier (0). A person signs up in a browser (0). 0+20+0+0 = 20.
Reliability Verdent +18
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.
Verdent 43
Local-package reading, as for the other closed-source harnesses. The desktop app installs from verdent.ai with macOS 11 or later and 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 stated, and the extension from the editor marketplaces, but not from a package registry (15). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). No public issue tracker, every task runs through Verdent's servers, and no status page was found, so there is no readable record (5). A dated changelog by version, with the end of Free Mode called out in v2.18.0, but no breaking-change sections (8). 2.18.0, generally available (15). 15+0+5+8+15 = 43.
Security & auth Conductor +12
Conductor 45
Closed app. Telemetry and data handling weren't read beyond the transition notice (10 of 30). A security and permissions page (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found (5). No audit log found (5). SOC 2 Type II report at trust.conductor.build (15 of 20). 10 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 15 = 45.
Verdent 33
Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing). Conversation history and tool results go to Verdent's US servers and on to Azure, Bedrock or Vertex, with zero data retention stated for Vertex and Bedrock only. Event logging to log.verdent.ai has no documented opt-out. BYOA keys stay on the machine (10). Plan Mode is read-only, Agent Mode asks before destructive commands and edits outside scope, and workers are isolated by git worktree, but there is no sandbox or network control and the approval list isn't enumerated (9). No prompt-injection guidance found, while web search and fetch results enter the context (2). Usage history in the dashboard, no audit log found (5). A security page with a disclosure address and a five-day acknowledgement, SOC 2 and ISO/IEC 42001 being pursued rather than held, no security.txt and no bug bounty (7). 10+9+2+5+7 = 33.
Schema & documentation Conductor +5
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).
Verdent 55
Framework reading for a harness. No schema for settings or output, only mcp.json examples in the standard mcpServers shape (5). Every current docs page has a Markdown twin at the same path with .md, though no llms.txt (10). The docs say when to use Agent Mode or Plan Mode and what Plan Mode can't do, but the Agent Mode page lists the actions that need approval only as "certain tool executions" and "destructive operations" (12). Modes and BYOA agent types are enumerated, permissions are not (5). Examples on the MCP, BYOA and messaging pages, and a recovery page, with no error codes (8). Version numbers and a dated public changelog (15). The archived 1.0 docs are still served beside the current ones. 5+10+12+5+8+15 = 55.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Conductor | Verdent | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 25 | 43 | Verdent +18 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 60 | 55 | Conductor +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 55 | 35 | Conductor +20 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 45 | 33 | Conductor +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 0 | 20 | Verdent +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 58 | 61 | Verdent +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 53 | 55 | Verdent +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| Total | E 41.3/100 | E 39.7/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Conductor | Verdent |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Conductor (joining Meta) | Verdent AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary. A closed-source Mac app and hosted Conductor Cloud under Conductor's terms | Proprietary. The terms of use from Verdent AI, Inc. forbid reverse engineering or copying any component, and no source is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | 2026-05-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | 2026-05-26 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
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.
Verdent
A desktop and editor coding agent that splits a goal into parallel workers in git worktrees, with a read-only Plan Mode, MCP servers and the option to run workers on Claude Code or Codex. It has no CLI, API or sandbox, sends context through Verdent's servers, and has had no free tier since 29 October 2026.
Before you call either
Conductor
- Export your data from Settings, Account, Export data before 20 November 2026
- Move Cloud workspaces to your Mac with Transfer to local before 13 November
- Plan a move off the local app before early 2027; see the agent-harnesses category for alternatives
Verdent
- Don't plan to drive Verdent headless. Hand the task to the person using the desktop app, or use a harness with a print mode
- Start large changes in Plan Mode and review plan.md before switching to Agent Mode
- Add MCP servers in the project's .mcp.json or ~/.verdent/mcp.json in the mcpServers shape
- Keep work under git, since rollback relies on git and there is no sandbox
- Budget in credits at about $0.059 each, because there is no free allowance since 29 October 2026
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Conductor or Verdent?
Conductor scores 41.3 (E) on agent readiness against Verdent's 39.7 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Verdent leads on reliability and payments & pricing.
Other comparisons with Conductor or Verdent
- Agent Zero vs Conductor
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- Antigravity CLI vs Conductor
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- Auggie CLI vs Conductor
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- Claude Code vs Conductor
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- Cline vs Conductor
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- Conductor vs Cursor CLI
- Conductor vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
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- Conductor vs Devin
- Conductor vs Droid CLI
- Conductor vs Pi
- Conductor vs Emdash
- Conductor vs Gemini CLI
- Conductor vs GitHub Copilot CLI
- Conductor vs goose
- Conductor vs Harness²
- Conductor vs HarnessRouter
- Conductor vs Jules
- Conductor vs Junie CLI
- Conductor vs Kilo Code CLI
- Conductor vs Kimi Code CLI
- Conductor vs Kiro CLI
- Conductor vs Letta
- Conductor vs mini-swe-agent
- Conductor vs MiniMax Code
- Conductor vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- Conductor vs Muse Code
- Conductor vs OpenAI Agents API
- Conductor vs OpenAI Codex
- Conductor vs OpenCode
- Conductor vs OpenHands
- Conductor vs OpenMausBot
- Conductor vs Orca
- Conductor vs Paseo
- Conductor vs Prime Agent
- Conductor vs Qoder CLI
- Conductor vs Qwen Code
- Conductor vs Mirror CLI
- Conductor vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Conductor vs Sculptor
- Conductor vs T3 Code
- Conductor vs Traycer
- Conductor vs Unstoppable
- Conductor vs Vibe-Trading
- Conductor vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- Crush vs Verdent
- Cursor CLI vs Verdent
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Verdent
- dsh-superagent (DeepSeek) vs Verdent
- Devin vs Verdent
- Droid CLI vs Verdent
- Pi vs Verdent
- Emdash vs Verdent
- Gemini CLI vs Verdent
- GitHub Copilot CLI vs Verdent
- goose vs Verdent
- Harness² vs Verdent
- HarnessRouter vs Verdent
- Jules vs Verdent
- Junie CLI vs Verdent
- Kilo Code CLI vs Verdent
- Kimi Code CLI vs Verdent
- Kiro CLI vs Verdent
- Letta vs Verdent
- mini-swe-agent vs Verdent
- MiniMax Code vs Verdent
- Mistral Vibe CLI vs Verdent
- Muse Code vs Verdent
- OpenAI Agents API vs Verdent
- OpenAI Codex vs Verdent
- OpenCode vs Verdent
- OpenHands vs Verdent
- Orca vs Verdent
- Paseo vs Verdent
- Prime Agent vs Verdent
- Qoder CLI vs Verdent
- Qwen Code vs Verdent
- Mirror CLI vs Verdent
- Rovo Dev CLI vs Verdent
- Sculptor vs Verdent
- T3 Code vs Verdent
- Traycer vs Verdent
- Verdent vs Vibe-Trading
- Verdent vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- Clawboo vs Conductor
- Clawboo vs Verdent
- CLI Manager vs Conductor
- CLI Manager vs Verdent
- Conductor vs Harness
- Conductor vs Paperclip
- Conductor vs Parallax
- Harness vs Verdent
- OpenMausBot vs Verdent
- Paperclip vs Verdent
- Parallax vs Verdent
- Unstoppable vs Verdent
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/conductor-vs-verdent.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/conductor.json·/api/v1/tools/verdent.json - From a terminal
anchor compare conductor verdent(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "conductor", "b": "verdent"}at/mcp, no key