Devin, from Cognition, is an autonomous software engineer that runs in the cloud, each session in its own virtual machine, with a terminal app that runs on your computer. If you want coding agents that run on your own computer, with a task board and no account, Friday is a free, MIT-licensed desktop app, and Devin’s terminal agent is one of the tools it runs. Facts about Devin are from its own site, pricing page and docs, checked 4 November 2026.
Why would you look for a Devin alternative?
Your work shouldn’t own your day, and an autonomous engineer that keeps going on its own cloud machine is one answer. Devin’s home page says every session runs in its own VM, that it keeps working when your laptop is closed, and that it can split work across parallel cloud agents, with integrations for Slack, Teams, Linear, Jira, GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket.
People look for an alternative for practical reasons. Cloud agents are on its Pro plan ($20 a month) and above, usage beyond the allowance is billed at API pricing, and the code runs on Devin’s machines unless you are on an enterprise plan with its own VPC. Others want several different makers’ agents side by side on their own computer.
How does Friday compare with Devin?
| Friday | Devin (from its own site and docs) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A free desktop app that runs your coding agents side by side on your own computer | An autonomous AI software engineer that writes, runs and tests code, in the cloud or, with its terminal app, on your machine |
| Where agents run | On your own computer, under your own accounts; they stop if it sleeps | Cloud sessions each in their own VM; Devin for Terminal runs locally and can hand longer tasks to cloud Devin |
| Which agents | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Devin and 12 more by name, plus any ACP agent | Devin’s own agent |
| Parallel work | Each agent can work in its own git worktree, on a task board | Parallel cloud agents; its pricing page lists up to 10 concurrent sessions, but we could not tell for which plans |
| Agents working together | Agents message each other, and when one hits its usage limit the task moves to another with a record of what the first did and changed | Hand-off from the terminal app to cloud Devin; we found no cross-maker agent messaging in what we read |
| Cost | Free, MIT, no account; you use your own coding tools’ plans | Free ($0, light quota), Pro $20 a month, Max $200, Teams $80 a month plus $40 per developer seat, Enterprise on request; paid plans have a usage allowance that refreshes daily and weekly |
Last checked: 4 November 2026
Check devin.ai, its pricing page and docs for what has changed since 4 November 2026. Its newest release note we read was dated 2 November.
Where is Devin stronger?
It is an autonomous engineer in its own right, not a way to run other tools. It works on a cloud machine with its own browser for testing, keeps going when your laptop is closed, takes work from Slack, Linear or Jira, and offers a virtual private cloud deployment and zero data retention with its model providers for enterprises. If you want to hand a ticket to something and come back to a result, that is the job it is built for.
When is Friday the better pick?
If you want to run the agents you already pay for, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and more, side by side on your own computer, with a task board, agents that message each other and a hand-off when a tool hits its usage limit. Friday’s agents run on your computer, so they stop if it sleeps.
See how to run multiple coding agents at once, and the other comparisons.
What is Friday?
Friday is a free, open-source (MIT) harness for coding agents that work as a team. It runs on your own computer with no account: the desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, or one command with Node.js 22 and Git.
- Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 13 more coding tools (16 by name, plus any ACP agent) run side by side on their own plans and sign-ins.
- One agent splits a job into a task board, the others pick up tasks, and every finished task is checked before it counts as done.
- Agents message each other as they work, and each can work in its own copy of the repository.
- When a tool runs out of usage mid-task, the task moves to the agent best placed to finish it.
- Review each run’s changes line by line, with git built in.
- No account; anonymous usage counts you can turn off; it listens on 127.0.0.1 only.
Install it with npx github:splashxmoon/friday or from GitHub; see the docs. Friday Team, the hosted version for several people in one session, is available to companies: talk to us.