Compare·Enterprise autonomy stack
Continuum
Multi-agent workbench
VS
Factory AI
Enterprise autonomy stack

Continuum vs Factory AI

Managed autonomous delegation for an organization, versus hands-on fleet control across the screens you already carry.

Factory is an enterprise autonomy platform built around Droids: autonomous software engineering agents available through Droid CLI, desktop, headless runs, long-running Missions, and persistent Droid Computers in Factory's cloud or on machines an organization already controls. Its public individual ladder starts at Pro $20/mo, then Plus $100/mo for roughly five times the usage and Droid Computers, then Max $200/mo for roughly ten times, with Teams and Enterprise quoted for organization rollout, governance, deployment controls, and support. There is no permanent free plan. Continuum is the free, vendor-neutral workbench for watching and steering a mixed fleet of Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok, and peer agents under the subscriptions you already hold. The fleet stays visible across Mac, iPhone, web, and Watch, with worktree isolation, plan gates, live quota gauges, and local cost by repo. Factory wins when the company wants to delegate work to a governed Droid platform. Continuum wins when the operator wants hands-on control of several vendor agents without replacing them. Context: agentic coding in practice.

Download for Mac All comparisons
Workflow Monday path Matrix Decide Money FAQ

Updated 2026-08-03 · Mac stable · Win/Linux desktop beta

Choose Continuum when

You want to watch and steer Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok, and peer agents as one fleet across Mac, iPhone, web, and Watch, using your own subscriptions, parallel worktrees, live quota gauges, and repo-level spend in a free app.

Choose Factory AI when

You want to delegate outcomes to Droids as an enterprise program: autonomous and multi-day work, managed or bring-your-own Droid Computers, organization-wide rollout, governance, deployment controls, and dedicated support.

Snapshot direct alternative
Dimension Continuum Factory AI
Worktree isolation Worktree sessions + spawn grid Agent workspaces + cloud computers
Board / fleet UX Sessions sidebar + spawn grid Droids across desktop, CLI, exec
Multi-provider Claude PTY · Codex ACP · Cursor · Grok · OpenCode… Model independence inside Factory
Mobile Native iPhone + Watch · QR/Tailscale pair Browser sessions at app.factory.ai
Gauges Menu-bar 5h + weekly gauges Billing tracking + readiness dashboard
Price Free app · hosted inference optional $20 / $100 / $200 · no free plan
Mac stable · web · iPhone · Watch · Win/Linux desktop beta · free app
01

Platform Droids vs BYOK workbench

In Continuum

Instrument the stack you already bought

10:00

Download Continuum free and attach Claude Max and Codex. The Code tab is a workbench by lunch, with no RFP and no seat count to agree on.

13:00

Worktree sessions, plan approve from the phone, and a PR pane. The ledger shows which repo ate the week and which provider did the eating.

15:30

Two providers race the same ticket in separate worktrees. Keep the better branch, throw the other worktree away, and nothing landed on main.

17:00

An enrolled remote host takes the night batch. In the weekly eng review, CLI fleet spend is a chart from local history rather than a platform QBR slide. More in tracking agent cost.

In Factory AI

Enterprise autonomy program

10:00

Adopt Factory. Droids cover the lifecycle across the desktop app, the CLI, and headless exec runs, with an agent-readiness dashboard behind it.

13:00

Heavy work moves onto Factory-managed Droid Computers, which arrive with the Plus and Max tiers rather than the entry plan.

15:30

Security review is a checkbox exercise rather than a research project: SSO, SAML/SCIM, audit logging, and zero data retention are on the Business tier.

17:00

Enterprise adds on-premise deployment, data residency, partitioned inference, and an account team. That is a platform purchase, and Continuum has no equivalent.

02

Monday path

Monday without an SDLC platform RFP

Install, connect, first session - steps you can run the same day.

01

Download Continuum free and attach the Claude and Codex logins your team already pays for.

02

Spawn worktree sessions and work the ticket through the plan, diff, and PR panes.

03

Pair an iPhone for plan approve. This is a native client, not a browser tab pointed at a console.

04

Watch the gauges for subscription heat and the ledger for spend by repo, provider, and day.

05

Enroll a Linux or Windows host over Tailscale if night batches should leave the laptop.

06

Run curl -fsSL https://continuumcode.ai/scan.sh | sh to price the AI history already on the machine before anyone quotes you a platform.

07

If you are evaluating Factory anyway, keep Continuum as the BYOK control sample so the pilot has a cost baseline.

08

Procurement tip: a week on existing seats produces real numbers, and real numbers survive a vendor comparison. See AI coding pricing compared.

How Continuum instruments your stack

How Continuum instruments your agent stack

  • Official CLIs on hosts you own: Claude over PTY, Codex and Cursor and Grok over the ACP harness, plus Gemini, OpenCode, and peers.
  • Worktree sessions, Code panes, and a spawn grid give fleet shape without adopting a persona catalog.
  • Multi-account isolation keeps two Claude or Codex subscription rails apart on one machine.
  • Mobile pairs over Tailscale MagicDNS, so approve and steer work from the phone without exposing a port.
  • Local JSONL analytics priced with a LiteLLM snapshot: $ by repo, provider, and day, with no token proxy on a BYOK session.
  • A pre-prompt git checkpoint per turn means a bad run is restored rather than negotiated.
  • Paired hosts advertise what they can run, so clients degrade cleanly across Mac, web, and remote devices.
03

Orchestrator / platform matrix

Cells use product nouns on both sides. Continuum is the multi-provider workbench; they win where their loop is the product.

Capability Continuum Factory AI
Multi-persona SDLC agents Sessions · providers you pick Droids across the lifecycle
Terminal coding agentBoth take the terminal seriously Your chosen frontier CLIs Droid CLI + headless exec
Bring Claude Max / ChatGPT plans Core design Model independence inside Factory
Local-first default Transcripts + keys local Local and cloud agents
Native iPhone + Watch clientsApprove a plan away from the desk Native iPhone + Watch · QR/Tailscale pair Browser sessions, no native app
Live multi-account gauges Menu-bar 5h + weekly gauges Platform billing tracking
Managed cloud machines Enrolled hosts · Cloud runners Droid Computers on Plus and Max
SSO, SCIM, audit log, zero data retention Org path Business and Enterprise tiers
On-premise + data residency Local-first, no on-prem control plane Enterprise deployment option
Worktree + PR coding panes Chat · plan · diff · PR · terminal · artifacts Platform workflows
Free tier Free app · optional Plus/Max/Ultra hosted Paid from $20/mo, no free plan
No token proxy on BYOK sessions Design rule Platform billing model
04

Purchase class differences

01 · Platform vs instrument

Factory sells an autonomy stack. Continuum sells the cockpit for yours.

Factory's Droids, missions, and enterprise packaging are a platform purchase with an adoption program attached. Continuum's story is narrower on purpose: keep the Claude, Codex, and Cursor stack you already run, and add the multi-device workbench plus cost truth on top. Continuum's org path exists, but it is not a replacement for an agent platform and nobody should pitch it that way in procurement.

02 · Trust boundary

Your subscriptions on your hosts.

Continuum drives official CLIs under your logins on machines you control, keeps transcripts local, and takes a git checkpoint before every prompt. Factory offers strong agent performance plus enterprise deployment, zero data retention, and on-premise options that Continuum simply does not sell. Different default relationship with the agent vendor, and the right answer depends on who signs your security review.

03 · Money shape

A free download versus a per-seat ladder.

Factory has no free plan as of August 2026: Pro is $20/mo, Plus $100/mo for about five times the usage plus Droid Computers, Max $200/mo for about ten times, and both team tiers are quoted. Continuum is $0 and the model spend stays on the plans you already hold. Before either conversation, price what your team is already burning with the local spend scan.

04 · Mobile engineering

Approve the plan from the phone.

Factory's answer to "I am not at my desk" is a browser session synced from the cloud. Continuum's is a native iPhone app and a Watch complication that surface plan-ready, take the approval, and show the diff. If the agent runs for twenty minutes and you are not sitting there, that difference is the whole workflow.

05 · When Factory wins

If you are buying autonomy as infrastructure.

If the pitch is agent-native development as one governed system across an enterprise, with named support, deployment options, and an adoption program, that is Factory's lane and they are good at it. Continuum stays the free multi-provider instrument for people already deep in CLI agents who want visibility rather than a platform.

05

Coexistence

Stack recipe

How people run both.

Stack recipe is uncommon but real in large orgs: Factory as the sanctioned platform for regulated programs, Continuum as the free BYOK workbench for teams already deep in Claude and Codex CLIs. Most buyers pick one primary, because the overlap is the daily coding loop and the difference is everything around it. Continuum does not pretend to be an SDLC platform, and it has no answer to on-premise deployment or contractual data residency.

Download Continuum Providers
06

Platform buy vs instrument download

Continuum

Choose Continuum to instrument CLIs you already pay for

  • Already deep in Claude, Codex, and Cursor CLIs and want one free place to run them.
  • Need local-first defaults plus native iPhone and Watch clients.
  • Want multi-account gauges and repo-level spend analytics you own.
  • Prefer BYOK economics over a per-seat platform ladder with no free tier.
  • Want worktrees, plan gates, checkpoints, and PR panes without adopting Droids.
  • Need a number this week rather than a procurement cycle this quarter.
Factory AI

Choose Factory for an enterprise autonomy stack

  • Want Droids across the lifecycle as governed org infrastructure.
  • Need Factory-managed cloud computers for heavy parallel runs.
  • Require SSO, SAML/SCIM, audit logging, and zero data retention contractually.
  • Need on-premise deployment, data residency, or partitioned inference.
  • Want a named account team, SLAs, and an adoption program.
  • Are buying the autonomy stack itself as the primary investment.
07

What you pay

Continuum

App + your labs

$0 for the app on Mac, web, iPhone, and Watch. Bring your own keys or the Claude and ChatGPT plans you already pay for, and Continuum takes no cut. Optional hosted inference: Plus $25/mo, Max 100 $100/mo, Max 200 $200/mo, Ultra $500/mo.

Factory AI

Their bill

Factory has no free plan as of August 2026. Pro is $20/mo for the desktop app, CLI, SDK, cloud and local agents, billing tracking, and the agent-readiness dashboard. Plus is $100/mo for roughly five times that usage plus Droid Computers, and Max is $200/mo for roughly ten times plus early features. Business is quoted for up to 150 seats with SSO, SAML/SCIM, zero data retention, and audit logging; Enterprise is quoted for unlimited seats, dedicated partitioned inference, on-premise deployment, and data residency.

How to compare

Total cost of work

Factory wins governed enterprise autonomy. Continuum wins the free instrument over a CLI stack you already pay for. Price the stack you have before you price the one you are shown.

Factory AI plans checked 3 August 2026 against their pricing page. Vendors reprice often - if you spot a stale figure, tell us and we will fix it. Continuum never marks up a session it runs under your own login.

Continuum ladder: Free app · Plus $25/mo · Max 100 · Max 200 · Ultra - full pricing. Also analytics, multi-account, devices.

08

Questions

Continuum vs Factory AI.

Deep dives: docs, providers, sessions.

Not on the public pricing page as of August 2026. The ladder starts at Pro $20/mo, then Plus $100/mo and Max $200/mo, with Business and Enterprise quoted by sales. Continuum's app is free on every client, and you only pay Continuum if you want hosted inference.

Team pricing is quoted. Business covers up to 150 seats and adds SSO, SAML/SCIM, zero data retention, audit logging, and custom usage limits; Enterprise adds unlimited seats, dedicated partitioned inference, on-premise deployment, sub-organizations, and data residency. Compare that against what your existing Claude or ChatGPT seats already cover, which is the point of team pricing math.

For multi-provider local coding agents with mobile control and cost analytics, yes, it is a serious consideration. For a governed enterprise autonomy platform with on-premise deployment and contractual data controls, Factory is a different product and Continuum does not replace it.

No, and that is deliberate. Continuum runs third-party coding agents, currently Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok, Gemini, OpenCode, and peers, so a better model next quarter is a dropdown rather than a migration. Factory's bet is the opposite: one first-party agent stack it can tune end to end.

Possible in a mixed stack, but most teams settle on one primary. Continuum fits people already deep in multi-provider CLI agents who want a free workbench, gauges, and a ledger, not a second platform to govern.

Factory markets Droid hard on terminal agent benchmarks, and benchmark leadership rotates every few months anyway. Continuum's bet is different: run whichever frontier CLI is currently winning, with the ops layer around it. If you want the current field, see the agent comparison.

No. The free BYOK app is the whole product for most people, and an org path exists when you need it. You can start today without a platform purchase, a seat count, or a security questionnaire.

On paper yes, if you already pay for Claude or ChatGPT: the app is $0 and those plans do the work. It stops being cheaper the moment you genuinely need Factory's managed compute, retention controls, or on-premise deployment, which is a different purchase rather than a pricier version of the same one.

Further reading

Guide

How to run multiple Claude Code sessions in parallel

Two to six agents at once: the isolation, the rate-limit math, and how to review the output without drowning.

Read guide → Guide

Codex vs Claude Code: two terminal agents compared

Same form factor, opposite defaults on trust and autonomy. And a strong case for running both.

Read guide → Guide

AI coding agents in 2026: the landscape, priced

Four categories, a dozen products, one price table. Pick the category first; the product matters less than people think.

Read guide →
Begin

Run your agents
in Continuum.

Free app. Your subscriptions. Optional hosted inference. Mac stable - Windows and Linux desktop are beta.

Download for Mac See pricing

vendor-neutral · local-first · multi-device