Two open-source answers to the same question, built outward in different directions.
Nimbalyst and intentic share more than either shares with anything else here: local, open source, free to run, parallel sessions on git worktrees, a phone in your pocket.
“Open-source visual workspace for coding agents. Build with Claude Code and Codex. Manage all the work around them.”
Nimbalyst builds outward toward the artefacts you and the agent share: markdown, mockups, Mermaid, Excalidraw, CSV, data models, each with a visual editor.
intentic builds outward toward the machine underneath: the image, the credentials, the events that wake it, the tunnel that makes it reachable.
Neither is the other's lesser version. If your work is as much documents and diagrams as it is code, their direction is the useful one.
Where we agree
Agents run locally on hardware you own, on a subscription you already have, in parallel with git worktree isolation. Both are open source, both extensible, both answerable from a phone.
Where they differ
The environment layer
Nimbalyst runs agents against your local checkout with your local tools. In intentic each has a container of its own, so the agent that needs psql and a headless browser has them and your laptop does not.
Systems, not just files
Capabilities wire a sandbox to GitHub, PostgreSQL, Sentry, Stripe, Discord, SSH and MCP servers, each with its credential kept inside. That is what lets an agent close the loop rather than hand you a patch.
The machine does not have to be the screen
Nimbalyst is a desktop app on the machine holding the code. intentic's sandbox dials out over a tunnel any browser reaches, so the work can happen on a VPS you never sit at.
Running when nobody is watching
Automations start a fresh session on a schedule, a push, an alert, a payment, an email or a chat message, gated by a guard command you write. An agent can also be invited into Discord.
More than one person
Invite a teammate by email and they reach the same sandbox over their own tunnel, with grants enforced fail-closed. Revoking or leaving never requires a paid plan.
Head to head
| Dimension | intentic | Nimbalyst |
|---|---|---|
| Where the agent runs | a Docker sandbox on hardware you own | your machine, in your checkout |
| Host operating system | macOS, Linux, Windows via WSL2 | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| How you reach it | any browser over a private tunnel | ▸ a native desktop app, plus an iOS app |
| Visual editors for docs, mockups and diagrams | a code editor and a diff reader | ▸ markdown, mockups, Mermaid, Excalidraw, CSV, data models |
| Task and plan tracking | to-dos inside a running turn | ▸ tasks and a session kanban as first-class objects |
| What you can change about the environment | the image, the capabilities, the context loaded each turn | your local machine, as it already is |
| Credentials for your systems | capabilities, stored sandbox-side, injected per turn | your shell environment |
| Starts on an event | automations: cron, webhook, push, alert, email, chat | you start it |
| Sharing with a teammate | invite by email; grants enforced by the daemon | one person, one machine |
| Account required | a Google sign-in for the hosted workspace | ▸ none at all |
| Licence | MIT sandbox and CLI; the hosted platform is closed | ▸ MIT desktop and iOS apps |
Pick Nimbalyst when
Your work is as much documents, mockups and diagrams as it is code, you want to review an agent's changes visually rather than as a unified diff, and you would rather install one desktop app with no account than run a sandbox.
Every claim above is checkable on nimbalyst.com and in this repo. Where we have it wrong, open an issue and it gets fixed in the next build.