Conductor vs Superset: which Claude Code runner should you use?

Conductor and Superset both run parallel Claude Code agents, and both start free. That is roughly where the similarity ends. Conductor is a lightweight CLI runner built specifically for Claude Code, recently extended with a cloud layer for team visibility. Superset is a broader agent platform: it handles 100+ parallel agents across multiple coding tools, ships an IDE-like workspace, and as of August 2026 holds SOC 2 Type II certification.

Both sit in a category that did not exist two years ago - parallel agentic runners layered on top of AI coding tools. Choosing between them is mostly a question of how many agents you run, whether you want to stay Claude Code-native, and how much process you want the tool to provide.

Conductor: lightweight, Claude Code-native, with a growing cloud layer

Conductor started as a CLI-first runner that parallelizes Claude Code via git worktrees. Each task gets its own worktree and its own Claude Code session. You describe what you want each agent to do, Conductor dispatches them, and you come back to a set of branches ready to review. The CLI is the surface - there is no GUI, no IDE integration, no visual layer.

That simplicity was its early appeal. If you were already running Claude Code manually across multiple worktrees, Conductor replaced a lot of shell scripting without requiring you to learn a new tool or surface.

Two recent releases shift its direction toward teams. Conductor Cloud (0.78.0, July 30) adds a web dashboard where you can monitor agent progress remotely, share results with teammates, and assign tasks without being at your terminal. Multiplayer EA (0.77.0, July 23) adds real-time streaming of agent output to team members, so a second person can watch what an agent is producing as it runs.

Where Conductor is strong:

• Claude Code native. Conductor wraps Claude Code directly via PTY. There is no translation layer, no prompt rewriting, no model substitution. You get exactly Claude Code's behavior with parallel dispatch layered on top.
• Low setup overhead. No additional runtime to install beyond the CLI and Claude Code. For teams already standardized on Claude Code, there is nothing new to evaluate or migrate - just a new command in your existing flow.
• Worktree isolation. Each agent runs in its own git worktree. Files never conflict mid-task; branches stay isolated until you merge them yourself.
• Cloud visibility without cloud execution. Conductor Cloud monitors local agents remotely - work still runs on your machine with your Claude subscription. This keeps the local-first, own-API-key model while adding team-observable output.

Where Conductor adds friction:

• CLI only. If you want to see what agents are producing without watching a terminal stream, you need Conductor Cloud. The local experience is entirely command-line.
• Claude Code only. Conductor does not support other coding tools. Teams that run Codex, Aider, Gemini, or OpenCode alongside Claude Code cannot route those agents through Conductor.
• Multiplayer is still early access. Real-time streaming to team members is in EA as of this writing - not production-stable for daily team use yet.

Superset: multi-model, high-scale parallelism, enterprise-ready

Superset handles parallelism at a different scale. The headline number is 100+ simultaneous agents in a single session. Beyond raw throughput, it supports multiple coding tools under one roof: Claude Code, Codex, Aider, OpenCode, Gemini, and Cursor. Teams that run experiments across models, or that have different agents using different tools, can manage them through one interface.

The interface itself is more IDE-like than Conductor's CLI. Superset provides a workspace where you can see agent status, manage task queues, and track which agents are working on what - closer to a project management surface than a terminal.

Superset 2.0 (August 2, 2026) added three meaningful capabilities: pull request management from within the tool, team automations (triggered sequences of agent tasks), and the start of its SOC 2 compliance track. SOC 2 Type II certification arrived August 27 - making Superset one of the first parallel-agent runners in this category to hold that certification. August 23 added browser design mode: a screenshot shortcut that captures your browser state and passes it to an agent as visual context.

Where Superset is strong:

• Scale. 100+ parallel agents in a single session is not a number Conductor or most other runners reach. For large batches of parallelizable work - test generation, documentation, multi-path prototyping across a big codebase - Superset's ceiling is genuinely higher.
• Multi-model routing. The ability to send tasks to different coding tools based on complexity, cost, or capability is a real advantage for teams that have not settled on a single model. Conductor does not offer this.
• SOC 2 Type II. For teams that need compliance documentation to clear a procurement or security review, Superset now has what most competitors in this category do not. Conductor Cloud is newer and has not published equivalent certifications.
• PR management and team automations. Superset 2.0 added the ability to track open PRs and trigger task sequences from within the tool. For teams running many agents, having agent output connected to the PR queue reduces the manual handoff step.

Where Superset adds friction:

• More to configure and manage. A platform handling 100+ agents across multiple models has more configuration surface. For solo developers or small teams running 3-5 agents, this overhead may not be worth it.
• Multi-model breadth can add complexity. Choosing between Claude, Codex, Aider, OpenCode, and Gemini per task requires knowing their tradeoffs. Conductor's single-model posture removes that decision entirely.
• Browser design mode is not a design gate. The August 23 screenshot feature is useful context for implementation agents, but it is not a spec-driven design stage. It captures the current visual state; it does not create a specification, collect annotations, or require sign-off before implementation starts.

Which to pick

The scale point matters more than it sounds. If you are running 3-5 agents at a time, both tools handle it without difficulty. If you are running 20-100+ agents per session - large batches of test generation, multi-path experiments, full-codebase documentation - Superset's ceiling is meaningful and Conductor's CLI model may become the limit. For a wider look at where different parallel agent approaches land relative to each other - supervised single-agent, parallel manual briefing, skills frameworks, dedicated runners, gated lifecycle - which agentic coding patterns actually scale is a useful starting point. The Claude Code orchestrators roundup also covers both tools in context alongside the broader landscape.

The layer both leave open

Conductor and Superset solve parallelism well. What neither provides is the structure around the task: deciding what to build before the agent starts, a design gate that verifies the direction before implementation runs, a review step that checks agent output before it merges. A runner dispatches work efficiently; a lifecycle decides what work gets dispatched, in what order, and whether it is ready to ship.

That process layer is where defract operates: a structured lifecycle (story, design, architecture, implementation, review, release) that runs on top of Claude Code, with a visual design stage and enforced review gates where agents check each other's work before you sign off. It is not a replacement for Conductor or Superset - it is a different part of the stack, one that decides what agents build and checks that the right things happen before code ships. For teams hitting the coordination ceiling on parallel agents, why AI coding agents need hard stage boundaries covers why this layer matters.