Cloud agents have a polished setup: connect a repo and go. During the run, your code, keys and production access live in the vendor's sandbox.
intentic keeps the same browser workflow with the sandbox on your own machine. The platform never handles commands or code, and the full MIT source is in one public repo.
Head to head
3 of 12 rows go to cloud agent platforms: ▸ marks them
Where you agree · both supervise agents from a browser, run jobs in parallel, review a plan before work begins and a diff before anything lands.
| Dimension | intentic | cloud agent platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Where the agent runs | your hardware | the vendor's cloud VM |
| Who can read your source | you; the platform has no path to it | the vendor, for the duration of the run |
| How it gets your code | it is already on your machine | cloned from GitHub, or uploaded, into their VM |
| Where your service credentials sit | inside your sandbox | in the vendor's secret store |
| Model billing | your own subscription, never metered by us | the vendor's plan, usually with a markup |
| Compute billing | self-hosted | the vendor's, metered or bundled |
| Supervision | fleet board, plan mode, diff review, transcripts | plan, diff and PR review, from the browser |
| Setup | Docker, a Google account, one pasted command | ▸connect a repo; nothing to host |
| Elastic capacity | bounded by the sandbox and runner machines you provide | ▸as many parallel agents as you will pay for |
| Enterprise paperwork | no certifications yet; the whole system is MIT and auditable | ▸established vendors with SOC 2, SSO and the certifications |
| Isolation | one sandbox container for the fleet; one git worktree per agent, on your machines | a vendor-run VM per task, with your repo cloned into it |
| Review workflow | the diff in the Changes panel, approved before it lands | a draft pull request to review after the run |
What it comes down to
Custody, stated architecturally
These platforms clone your repository into a vendor-managed VM: Jules and Claude Code call it a Cloud VM, Codex says "isolated cloud environments," Devin sells Devin Cloud. With intentic your browser holds the command token, and the platform stores identity, a URL and grants, never your code or credentials.
Your subscription and hardware, no meter
Cloud platforms bill for the model and the machine, usually with a markup, from roughly $20 to $200 a month. intentic uses what you already have and charges nothing, so capacity is whatever your machine can run.
Pick cloud agent platforms when
You would rather not provide a machine, the repository is not sensitive, procurement needs a vendor with certifications in hand, and you want fifty parallel agents on a Tuesday without owning fifty cores.
How this was checked
Every claim about cloud agent platforms on this page is drawn from its own documentation, last read on . These products move fast. Spot something out of date? Open an issue and it is fixed in the next build.