Comparison
Conductor vs Baton for AI coding agents
Conductor and Baton are both built for running coding agents in parallel with isolated workspaces, reviewable diffs, and git branches. The practical difference is fit: Conductor is a polished Mac-first app centered on Claude Code and Codex. Baton is terminal-first: it runs any CLI agent directly, so each agent can keep its native features while Baton adds more powerful workspace notifications, monitoring, shortcuts, sandboxing, panes, previews, and local organization around it.
Short version
Choose Conductor if you are on macOS, mainly use Claude Code or Codex, and want a dedicated agent workspace app with worktrees, chats, diffs, checks, PR actions, and a guided review flow.
Choose Baton if you want a terminal-focused control surface instead of a wrapper around a small set of agents: support for any CLI agent, cross-platform use, no-account local operation, more powerful workspace notifications and monitoring, prompt and command shortcuts, terminal panes, browser previews, voice dictation, workspace search, and optional sandboxing for more aggressive agent runs.
| Area | Conductor | Baton |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Mac users running Claude Code and Codex through isolated workspaces. | Developers managing many terminal agents, custom CLIs, workspaces, panes, previews, and review tasks across platforms. |
| Platforms | Mac app, with Conductor Cloud now advertised separately. | macOS, Windows, and Linux desktop app. |
| Agent support | Public FAQ lists Claude Code and Codex, with Conductor-specific chat, review, and workspace flows around them. | Terminal-first support for any CLI agent, with first-class Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, and Gemini CLI integrations, many presets, and fully custom commands that preserve the agent's native features. |
| Worktree isolation | Yes. Conductor documents one git worktree and branch per workspace. | Yes. Baton workspaces can be backed by git worktrees or ordinary directories. |
| Monitoring | Workspace lists, chats, statuses, checks, diffs, PR state, and review actions. | More powerful workspace notifications and monitoring: a visual left pane for scanning running, waiting, finished, and review-ready agents, with diffs and previews close by without opening every terminal. |
| Organization | Projects, workspaces, branches, chat tabs, workspace names, and recent workspace sorting. | AI-generated workspace titles, workspace search, branch/worktree tracking, custom ordering, multiple windows, and visible status on workspace cards. |
| Review workflow | Diff viewer, comments, checks, GitHub review comments, PR creation, and merge flow. | Visual diffs, file viewing and editing, git history, git blame, branch actions, and per-workspace review before merge or cleanup. |
| Terminal workflow | Integrated terminal and agent chat inside a workspace. | Multiple terminals per workspace, tabs, split panes, searchable output, and custom terminal-based agent commands. |
| Shortcuts and input | Keyboard shortcuts, slash commands, and agent modes. | Keyboard shortcuts, reusable prompt and command shortcuts, dictation, and quick launch flows for common agent tasks. |
| Sandboxing | Local execution on your Mac; Conductor docs say workspace isolation is not a security boundary. | Optional network sandboxing and a Lima VM workflow for running agents with stronger operational boundaries. |
Where Conductor is strong
Conductor is close to Baton in category. Its public docs describe isolated workspaces, one branch and working tree per workspace, parallel agents, chats, diffs, checks, PR actions, MCP configuration, and a focused review-and-merge workflow. It is not just a terminal wrapper.
That makes Conductor a strong choice if your setup is Mac-based and your agent work is mostly Claude Code and Codex. The product is clearly optimized around a guided path from workspace to diff to pull request.
Where Baton is different
Baton leans harder into being the control surface for many agent processes at once. The left pane is designed to keep the whole run visible: which workspaces are active, which agents are waiting for input, which tasks finished, which branches need review, and which previews or diffs are worth opening next. The notification and monitoring model is a core Baton feature, not just a badge on a chat.
The biggest difference is that Baton is terminal-first. Conductor is centered on wrapping Claude Code and Codex in its own workspace and review flow. Baton runs any CLI agent directly, so the agent keeps its own native behavior, flags, config, login state, slash commands, MCP setup, and quirks while Baton organizes the surrounding workspace.
If an agent runs in a terminal, Baton can run it: Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Cursor CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Aider, Amp, Qwen Code, Mistral, Goose, and custom commands. That matters if your workflow mixes agents instead of standardizing on one or two.
The other split is operational. Baton supports Windows and Linux in addition to macOS, works locally without an account, includes browser panes and terminal splits, lets you save common prompt and command shortcuts, supports voice dictation, and offers optional sandboxing when you want agents to run with fewer manual approvals.
The practical difference
Conductor is a strong Mac-first agent workspace and PR app for Claude Code and Codex. Baton is a terminal-first workspace manager for any CLI agent, with stronger visual notifications and monitoring for keeping a larger, messier set of work organized on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Which should you use?
Use Conductor if you are already committed to macOS, Claude Code, Codex, and a workspace-to-PR workflow that lives inside one dedicated app.
Use Baton if you want the real terminal CLIs, not a narrow agent wrapper, and your bottleneck is coordination: too many agents, too many terminals, too many branches, too many diffs, too many previews, and too many half-finished tasks to keep in your head. Baton is built to make that state visible, searchable, reviewable, and manageable from one desktop app.
Sources
This comparison is based on Conductor's public homepage, changelog, docs, isolated workspaces docs, parallel agents docs, diff viewer docs, MCP docs, and security and permissions docs.
If you want a cross-platform way to keep many AI coding agents visible and organized, download Baton, read the git worktree workflow, or compare supported agent CLIs.