# Parallax vs Sculptor (slim)

> Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) to Parallax's 38.1 (E) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallax-agents-vs-sculptor.md (~5,650 tokens) · this version ~2,180 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallax-agents-vs-sculptor.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallax-agents-vs-sculptor
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) on agent readiness against Parallax's 38.1 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- Parallax: E 38.1, rank #1365 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/parallax-agents.min.md
- Sculptor: D 53.1, rank #966 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sculptor.min.md
- Parallax, good for A developer on a Mac who runs several coding agents across Claude and Codex subscriptions and wants cross-lab review of finished sessions on GitHub.
- Sculptor, good for Developers who want parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces and are fine with a research preview. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 45 against 29; Agent ergonomics, 50 against 42; Security & auth, 57 against 43; Payments & pricing, 60 against 30; Maintenance & community, 75 against 56; Transparency & trust, 57 against 50. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.

| Category | Parallax | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 40 | 43 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 29 | 45 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 42 | 50 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 43 | 57 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 56 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 50 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Parallax | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Conifer Solutions, Inc. | Imbue, Inc. |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Conifer's Terms of Service (Conifer Solutions, Inc.). The GitHub repository holds the README and release binaries, not the source | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 0 | none |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-22 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-22 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, Sculptor +30: Parallax 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Parallax episode credit prices are read from the account after sign-in. Gateway token prices are public at `GET /v1/catalog` with no key, which covers Conifer credit spent by agents (10). $50 of Conifer credit and 5 free episodes on GitHub sign-up, with no card mentioned, and agents can run on the owner's own Claude and Codex subscriptions (20). A person has to download the app, sign in and install the GitHub App, so no autonomous onboarding (0).); Sculptor 60 (Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy, so 0 for a protocol and 20 each for public pricing, a free tier and onboarding with no sign-up, 60.)
- Maintenance & community, Sculptor +19: Parallax 56 (v1.0.2 on 16 October 2026 (30). Three releases, v1.0.0 to v1.0.2, on 15 and 16 October 2026 (20). Closed service. No public changelog. Support through a GitHub issues link, a Discord server and email, none of which we could check for replies (3). No Parallax SDK and nothing in the MCP registry. Conifer's SDK is for the gateway (0). Signed builds with checksums and a self-updater, with no CI to inspect (3).); Sculptor 75 (Commits on 6 November 2026 and frequent tagged versions (30). More than three releases in 90 days (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent; the README says Imbue can't take many outside contributions yet (0). Current official downloads (15). CI on pull requests (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.)
- Schema & documentation, Sculptor +16: Parallax 29 (The review API has no OpenAPI or endpoint reference. Endpoints appear only in curl examples, and the base URL `$PARALLAX_URL` is not published (0). conifer.build/llms.txt covers the gateway in detail and Parallax in two lines that point to the docs (5). The docs explain sessions, sweeps, evidence states, memory and retention at length, but nothing documents the app, Captain, fallback or fast merge (8). parallax.yml keys are listed with allowed values (`deliver: proven-only`, `review: off`, severity floors, sweep modes), but request and response shapes for the API are not (5). curl examples, sample sweep lines and a table of skip reasons with the fix for each (8). Paths sit under `/v1`, with no changelog for Parallax (3).); Sculptor 45 (Harness reading. A README, specs and agent docs in the repository; no API reference (45).)
- Security & auth, Sculptor +14: Parallax 43 (Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Once installed, capture uploads transcripts, tool calls with results and source snapshots from every repository on the machine unless a local allowlist is set first, and the app updates itself by default. Uploads stop with `PARALLAX_STORE_UPLOAD=off` and the token is revocable (8). Proofs run in a throwaway cloud copy, automatic PR review is off by default and Parallax never merges its own fix PR. What Captain may do to a running agent is not documented (10). Reviewers read untrusted transcripts and code with no documented mitigation. Lessons injected into the agent come only from verified outcomes and maintainer replies, never bots, and the brief labels everything else as cited fact (8). Recall receipts, per-injection records, sweep lines, the review ledger and `GET /v1/calibration` (12). No security.txt, bug bounty, SOC 2 or advisories. The privacy policy names a contact for security reports with a two-business-day reply and lists encryption and row-level security (5).); Sculptor 57 (Harness reading. Product analytics, error reporting and session recording default to off in the user config, and the app asks for a telemetry level and privacy consent at first run; PostHog runs on the front end only for now (25 of 30). Each workspace is an isolated copy of the code (14 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). SECURITY.md (8). 25 + 14 + 5 + 5 + 8 = 57.)
- Agent ergonomics, Sculptor +8: Parallax 42 (Scored on the review API and the hooks, the only parts an agent touches. The session-start brief is cut at 6,000 characters, memory per review call at 12,000, and `lesson_cap` sets 1 to 20 lessons per person (8). `repo` filters on recall and brief, `brain=true` on the ledger, no documented pagination (4). Skip reasons such as `capture_commit_missing` and `test_configuration_missing` each come with a fix, but HTTP error codes for the API are not documented (12). A session is swept once per capture mark, retries use no extra credit, and a fix PR is reused and never reopened or merged by Parallax (14). No SDK for Parallax, and capture of every repository is the default (4).); Sculptor 50 (Harness reading. Workspaces as isolated copies, review and merge back, and built-in skills (50).)
- Transparency & trust, Sculptor +7: Parallax 50 (Closed source under Conifer's terms, which name the company, a Delaware corporation, and Delaware law (15). The privacy policy and docs agree on 30-day session retention, consent by installing capture, the upload opt-out and deletion by request. The policy predates the app and names only Claude Code and Codex for capture, while the docs also name Cursor, Cline and Prime (18). No deprecation policy. Conifer dated the retirement of its earlier desktop download page (1 September 2026), but nothing for Parallax (3). Fly.io is named as the Parallax subprocessor with US processing. Whether the Parallax app sends telemetry is not stated, and the self-updater's off switch is documented in the README (12).); Sculptor 57 (MIT (30). Consent-based telemetry documented in the repository (18 of 30). The README warns of drastic changes during the research preview, with no deprecation policy (5). Opt-in telemetry (20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 20 = 73.)