--- title: "Cork vs Amika: VMs for your agents, or coordination between them · Cork" description: "Cork vs Amika: Amika provisions multiplayer VM Rigs for coding agents. Cork keeps parallel agents on one codebase from overwriting each other." canonical: "https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-amika" last_updated: "2026-11-14" published: "2026-10-03" author: "Kevin Vera" --- # Cork vs Amika: VMs for your agents, or coordination between them Cork vs Amika: Amika provisions multiplayer VM Rigs for coding agents. Cork keeps parallel agents on one codebase from overwriting each other. By Kevin Vera · October 3, 2026 · [Comparisons](https://corkcli.com/blog/c/comparisons) · 6 min read How is Cork different from Amika? Amika, built by Fixpoint, provisions "multiplayer cloud workstations for coding agents and humans": VMs called Rigs that you load with agents and control from Slack, Linear, the web, a CLI or an API. Cork does not provision anything. It runs under the agents you already use (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) and keeps them, and the people running them, from overwriting each other on one codebase, while handing each agent what the others already learned. Put simply: Amika gives your agents a computer; Cork gives them awareness of each other. ## Cork vs Amika at a glance | Topic | Cork | Amika (as of October 2026) | |---|---|---| | What it is | [Coordination layer](https://corkcli.com/blog/coordination-layer-ai-coding-agents) for multiple AI coding agents on one codebase | "An operating system for coding agents": multiplayer VM workstations called Rigs | | Where agents run | Where they already run, on your machine | In Rigs on Amika's cloud, your cloud, or your own computer (micro-VMs or Docker) | | Agents covered | Claude Code, Codex and Cursor via hooks; any MCP client | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, or your own harness | | What is shared | Live awareness of changes, briefings, notes anchored to code | Rigs, preview URLs, agent sessions | | Conflict handling | Write gate, live change notices, [semantic lint](https://corkcli.com/blog/semantic-lint), landing that rebases and retests | Not described in Amika's docs as of October 2026 | | Install | One command: `curl -fsSL https://corkcli.com/install.sh \| sh` | Web app, plus an open source `amika` CLI | | Open source / free | Cork Free runs on one machine with no account | Open core under Apache 2.0 (CLI, daemon, sandbox image, SDK); control plane and UI are closed | | Pricing | Free (local, and 10 agent hours a month in the cloud); $20 a month per 100 agent hours, pooled | Free; Developer $30/user/month; Team $100/user/month; Enterprise custom | ## What is Amika? Amika (amika.dev, Fixpoint, Inc.) lets you "create a sandbox VM on any computer. Run any agent on the sandbox. Message your agents and trigger workflows from any surface." A Rig is "a workstation tuned for coding agents and humans to collaborate in." Amika wires your Git repos, agent configs and credentials into each Rig, exposes HTTPS preview URLs for apps the agents build, and lets teammates share Rigs. Rigs can be ephemeral (for one pull request) or persistent. Agents can be driven from the web UI, Slack, Linear, SSH, the CLI, an API, Codex or Cursor, and Amika integrates with GitHub CI and Sentry. Its open core lives at github.com/gofixpoint/amika (Apache 2.0, about 255 stars when we checked). ## What is Cork? Cork (corkcli.com, by Lithometric) keeps several AI coding agents, and the people running them, from overwriting each other on one codebase, and hands each agent what the others already learned. It is not an agent and does not host machines. Hooks in Claude Code, Codex and Cursor run the protocol with no extra model calls; an MCP server (https://mcp.corkcli.com) serves any MCP client. - **Briefing**: exact signatures, callers and recent changes of the code an agent is about to touch, delivered at start and with each prompt. - **Live awareness**: a teammate's rename or new signature reaches your agent on its next step. - **[Write gate](https://corkcli.com/blog/write-gate)**: an edit against code another agent is changing right now is held until your agent has their version. - **Semantic lint**, **landing** (`git push` that rebases, reruns tests and pushes), **agent messaging**, and MCP tools such as get_symbol, blast_radius, recap and remember/recall. ## Where Amika stands out - **Compute anywhere.** Rigs run on Amika's cloud, your cloud, Kubernetes, E2B or your own computer. - **Control from any surface.** Slack, Linear, web, SSH, CLI and API access make it easy to trigger agents from where work is discussed. - **Open core.** The CLI, daemon, sandbox image and TypeScript SDK are Apache 2.0. - **Automation hooks.** GitHub Actions integration and an API for managed cloud agents suit CI-style fix-it workflows. - **Live preview URLs** for whatever the agents are building. ## Where Cork wins - **Coordination is the product.** Amika gets many agents running; Cork makes sure [parallel AI coding agents](https://corkcli.com/blog/parallel-ai-coding-agents) on the same code do not undo each other, with a write gate and live notices instead of discovering agent merge conflicts after the fact. - **No new infrastructure.** Nothing to provision, no VM bill. Your agents keep running in your terminal. - **Agents arrive informed.** In Cork's benchmark (12 Claude Code agents at once on one repository, hard tasks), agents with Cork used 53% fewer tokens than the same agents without it. - **Cross-person awareness.** On the paid plan, agents across teammates' machines see each other, and prompts are matched to code by meaning. - **No seat price.** Cork bills pooled agent hours, $20 a month per 100 hours across the workspace, where Amika charges $30 to $100 per user, so the two are not per-person equivalents. ## Can you use both? Often, yes. Amika puts multiple agents on Rigs; once several of them touch the same repository, they face the same problem as agents on a laptop: one renames a function while another is still calling the old name. Cork installs per machine with one command and hooks into Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, so a persistent Rig running those agents is a reasonable place to try it. Amika does not document a Cork integration, so verify it in your own Rig image before relying on it. ## Pricing compared - **Amika**: Free ($0, $5 sandbox credits, 2 concurrent sandboxes); Developer $30 per user per month ($15 sandbox credits, 10 concurrent sandboxes); Team $100 per user per month ($50 credits, unlimited concurrent sandboxes); Enterprise custom with SSO, audit logs and bring-your-own-cloud. - **Cork**: Cork Free (unlimited agents and repos on one machine, no account) and Cloud Free (10 agent hours a month per account, 30-day history); agent hours at $20 a month per unit of 100, pooled across the workspace, 15% off a year; Enterprise from about 100 units. Amika's plans include sandbox compute credits. Cork's do not, because it does not run compute. ## Bottom line Amika is the right choice when you need somewhere for agents to run: VMs on any cloud, controllable from Slack or an API. Cork is the right choice when your agents already have a place to run and the problem is multi-agent coding on one codebase without collisions. They solve different layers of the same stack, and a team running several agents on Amika Rigs is exactly the kind of team that hits the problem Cork solves. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Cork an alternative to Amika? Not directly. Cork does not provide cloud VMs, sandboxes or preview URLs. If you need hosted workstations for agents, Amika fits. If you need multiple Claude Code agents to stop overwriting each other, Cork fits. ### Does Amika stop agents from overwriting each other? Amika runs agents in isolated Rigs, and its docs say agents and Rigs can communicate, but as of October 2026 its docs do not describe detecting or holding conflicting edits on the same code. ### Is Amika open source? Partly. The CLI, daemon, sandbox image and SDK are Apache 2.0; the control plane, web UI and relay are closed source. ### Does Cork need a cloud account? No. Cork Free works on one machine with no account and keeps all data on that machine. An account adds Cloud Free and paid agent hours. ### Which agents work with each? Amika supports Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi and custom harnesses. Cork hooks into Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, and any MCP client can use its MCP server. ## Sources Checked October 2026: - - - - - - ## Related reading - [Cork vs qm: a team agent harness, or a coordination layer for coding agents](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-qm): Cork vs qm: YC's open source qm is a multiplayer agent harness for Slack and web. Cork keeps parallel AI coding agents from overwriting each other's code. - [Cork vs HumanLayer: an agent IDE for teams, or coordination under any tool](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-humanlayer): Cork vs HumanLayer: HumanLayer is a multiplayer coding agent IDE and cloud; Cork keeps parallel agents from overwriting each other wherever they run. - [Cork vs Warp: orchestrating agents in the cloud, or coordinating them on one codebase](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-warp): Cork vs Warp: Warp's Oz runs and orchestrates cloud coding agents at scale. Cork keeps parallel AI coding agents from overwriting each other's code. - [Cork vs Herdr: where agents live vs how they share a codebase](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-herdr): Cork vs Herdr: Herdr keeps AI coding agents running in persistent terminal panes. Cork keeps those parallel agents from overwriting each other's code. 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