---
title: "intentic vs Synara · nine runtimes, or a machine each"
description: "Synara runs nine agent runtimes in one local-first desktop window. intentic runs each agent in a container you configure, with your systems wired in and events that wake it."
url: "https://intentic.dev/compare/synara/"
---

[Compare](https://intentic.dev/compare/) Local agent orchestrators · same instinct, wider scope

# Synara gives nine agent runtimes one window. intentic gives one agent a whole machine.

Both are free, local-first and open source, both isolate work in git worktrees, and neither goes near your tokens. They spend their effort at opposite ends of the same stack.

> “The command center for agentic development”: a local-first desktop app that runs Claude, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Antigravity, Grok, Kilo Code, Pi or Droid with the account you already use.

*Synara · [www.trysynara.com](https://www.trysynara.com/)*

[Get started free](https://app.intentic.dev) [See the product](https://intentic.dev/product/)

The short answer

Synara invests in breadth at the top: nine agent runtimes, split chats, terminals, browser previews, diffs, worktrees and a one-click pull request, in one desktop window with nothing to sign up for.

intentic invests in depth at the bottom: whichever harness you pick gets a container built from an image you approve, capabilities that hand it your repo, your database and your error tracker, and an event that can start it without you.

On runtime count Synara simply wins. If the machine you already have carries what your work needs, that breadth — plus not running Docker — is a real reason to choose it.

## Where we agree

Both run on hardware you own, on subscriptions you already pay for, with no proxy and no markup in between. Work is isolated in git worktrees so parallel agents cannot write over each other, nothing reaches your tree before you have read a diff, and both engines are MIT and public.

## Where they differ

01

### Breadth at the top, or depth underneath

Synara's answer to “which agent” is nine of them, with a session's context following you when you hand it to another. intentic's answer is five natively plus any ACP agent, and then everything under whichever one you picked.

02

### The environment is a file you approve

Synara runs the runtimes authenticated on your machine, so what an agent can do is what you happen to have installed. Here the machine is an image, extended by an overlay Dockerfile you read first, and it is per agent rather than per person.

03

### 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 finish a job rather than stall at the point where it needs the staging database.

04

### Reaching the work from elsewhere

Synara's remote access is self-hosted over your own network, behind a token you control. An intentic sandbox dials a private tunnel outward, so the machine doing the work can be a VPS you never sit at, on a network you are not on.

05

### Running when the window is closed

Automations start a fresh session on a schedule, a push, an alert, a payment, an email or a chat message, each with its own transcript. And a teammate invited by email reaches the same sandbox over their own tunnel.

## Head to head

| Dimension | intentic | Synara |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Where the agent runs | a Docker sandbox on hardware you own | your machine, against your local checkout |
| Host operating system | macOS, Linux, Windows via WSL2 | macOS, Windows and Linux |
| Agent runtimes | 5 native harnesses, plus any ACP agent as a capability | ▸ 9: Claude, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Antigravity, Grok, Kilo Code, Pi, Droid |
| What you can change about the environment | the image, the capabilities, the context loaded each turn | your machine, as it already is |
| Where credentials live | inside the sandbox, injected per turn | your machine, one login per runtime |
| Shipping the change | a diff reader with comments, then land onto your tree or discard | ▸ diff review, then a one-click pull request with a generated title and body |
| How you reach it from elsewhere | a private tunnel the sandbox dials out; nothing inbound is opened | self-hosted over your own network, behind a token you control |
| Native desktop app | browser workspace, plus two-way desktop sync | ▸ a native desktop app |
| Starts on an event | automations: cron, webhook, push, alert, email, chat | you open the app |
| 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 |

## Pick Synara when

You want the widest choice of agent runtime in one window — Antigravity, Kilo Code, Pi and Droid alongside the usual three — on a machine that already carries the tools your work needs, with no account, no container runtime and no platform anywhere in the path.

Every claim above is checkable on [www.trysynara.com](https://www.trysynara.com/) and in this repo. Where we have it wrong, [open an issue](https://github.com/intentic/intentic/issues) and it gets fixed in the next build.

[Next comparison vs cloud agents → Devin, Codex cloud, Jules: the one real either/or](https://intentic.dev/compare/cloud-agents/)

[Get started free](https://app.intentic.dev) [All comparisons](https://intentic.dev/compare/)