--- title: "Cork vs Superconductor: a hosted agent workspace, or coordination for the agents you run · Cork" description: "Cork vs Superconductor: Superconductor runs coding agents in cloud sandboxes for teams. Cork stops parallel agents from overwriting each other's code." canonical: "https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-superconductor" last_updated: "2026-11-14" published: "2026-10-03" author: "Kevin Vera" --- # Cork vs Superconductor: a hosted agent workspace, or coordination for the agents you run Cork vs Superconductor: Superconductor runs coding agents in cloud sandboxes for teams. Cork stops parallel agents from overwriting each other's code. By Kevin Vera · October 3, 2026 · [Comparisons](https://corkcli.com/blog/c/comparisons) · 6 min read How is Cork different from Superconductor? Superconductor is "the multiplayer AI workspace for teams and coding agents": a hosted product where engineers, PMs and designers launch agents into isolated cloud sandboxes, watch live previews and review the result with guided code review. Cork does not run agents or sandboxes. It sits under the agents you already run on your own machine (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) and keeps them, and the people running them, from overwriting each other on one codebase. In short: Superconductor is where your team's agents work; Cork is how your agents stay out of each other's way. ## Cork vs Superconductor at a glance | Topic | Cork | Superconductor (as of October 2026) | |---|---|---| | What it is | [Coordination layer](https://corkcli.com/blog/coordination-layer-ai-coding-agents) for parallel AI coding agents on one codebase | Multiplayer AI workspace for teams and coding agents | | Where agents run | Where they already run, on your machine | Isolated cloud sandboxes Superconductor hosts | | Agents covered | Claude Code, Codex and Cursor via hooks; any MCP client | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Pi, Factory Droid, Grok Build, Amp, Cursor | | What is shared | Live awareness of changes, briefings, notes anchored to code | Sessions, tickets, live previews, guided reviews | | Conflict handling | Write gate, live change notices, [semantic lint](https://corkcli.com/blog/semantic-lint), landing that rebases and retests | Each implementation runs in its own sandbox; merge-time conflict handling is not described in the docs | | Install | One command: `curl -fsSL https://corkcli.com/install.sh \| sh` | Web plus desktop apps (macOS, Linux) and mobile apps (iPhone, iPad, Android PWA) | | Free tier | Cork Free: unlimited agents and repos on one machine | Free: 32 sandbox hours, up to 4 members and 4 concurrent agents | | Paid pricing | $20 a month per 100 agent hours, pooled across the workspace | Pro $128/month; Enterprise custom | ## What is Superconductor? Superconductor (superconductor.com, built by Volition) lets teams "drive their own agents" in shared sessions. Each piece of work runs in a fast isolated cloud sandbox with snapshots and configurable network policies, and the docs say environments start in under 30 seconds. Teammates can @mention each other into conversations, test changes in live app previews, and use Guided Review, which orders files "dependencies first, then dependents" and lets you chat with agents about specific diff lines. Slack and GitHub integrations start work from existing discussions. You can connect existing Claude Pro/Max/Team plans, ChatGPT subscriptions or API keys. Pro also includes custom SWE-Bench style benchmarking of agents on your repository. ## 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 hosts nothing. Hooks in Claude Code, Codex and Cursor run the protocol with no extra model calls, and an MCP server serves any MCP client. - **Briefing**: exact signatures, callers and recent changes for the code an agent is about to touch. - **Live awareness**: another agent's rename or signature change reaches yours on its next step. - **[Write gate](https://corkcli.com/blog/write-gate)**: edits against code another agent is changing right now are held until your agent has their version. - **Semantic lint**, **landing** (`git push` that rebases onto teammates' commits, reruns tests and pushes), **agent messaging**, and MCP tools including get_symbol, blast_radius, recap and remember/recall. ## Where Superconductor stands out - **Non-engineers in the loop.** PMs, designers and growth can launch and steer agents without a local setup. - **Hosted sandboxes with network policy.** Isolation and snapshots are managed for you. - **Live previews and Guided Review** make reviewing agent output faster. - **Wide agent support**, including Amp, Factory Droid and Grok Build. - **Repository-specific agent benchmarking** on the Pro plan. ## Where Cork wins - **Your agents stay local.** No sandbox hours, no new workspace; Cork adds hooks to the terminal and editor you use now. - **Collisions caught while code is written.** Isolated sandboxes keep agents apart until their branches meet. Cork's write gate and live notices handle agent merge conflicts before they happen, not in review. - **Informed agents, fewer tokens.** 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. - **No caps on agents.** Cork Free has unlimited agents and repos on one machine; Superconductor Free allows 4 concurrent agents. ## Can you use both? Possibly, but with less overlap than it sounds. Superconductor's agents run in its hosted sandboxes, and we found no documented way to add your own hooks there, so Cork would mainly cover the agents your engineers still run locally. The practical case is a team that uses Superconductor for tickets driven by PMs and designers while engineers run multiple Claude Code agents on their laptops: Cork keeps those local agents from colliding with each other and with what lands from the sandboxes. ## Pricing compared - **Superconductor**: Free ($0, up to 32 sandbox hours a month, 4 vCPUs / 8 GB, up to 4 team members, up to 4 concurrent agents, no card). Pro $128 per month (up to 128 sandbox hours with higher tiers available, up to 32 members, unlimited concurrent agents, first month free with an onboarding call). Enterprise custom. Y Combinator and ed-tech startups get 20% off paid plans. - **Cork**: Cork Free (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. Superconductor's price includes sandbox compute; Cork's does not. ## Bottom line Pick Superconductor if you want a hosted, browser and mobile friendly place where a whole product team can launch agents, preview their work and review it. Pick Cork if your engineers already run agents locally and need them to stop overwriting each other. The two are built for different jobs, and many teams will only need one of them. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Cork an alternative to Superconductor? For hosted sandboxes, previews and guided review, no: Cork does not provide those. For keeping multiple AI coding agents on one codebase from colliding, Cork is purpose built. ### Does Superconductor stop agents from overwriting each other? Each implementation runs in its own isolated sandbox, so agents do not share a working copy. As of October 2026 its docs do not describe detecting conflicts between agents before merge. ### Does Cork work with Cursor and Codex? Yes. Cork has hooks for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, and an MCP server any MCP client can use. ### Can I bring my Claude subscription to Superconductor? Yes. Superconductor says you can connect Claude Pro/Max/Team plans, ChatGPT subscriptions or your own API keys. ### Which is cheaper? Cork bills pooled agent hours: $20 a month per 100 hours across the workspace. Superconductor Pro is $128 per month for the workspace and includes sandbox hours, so compare based on whether you need hosted compute. ## Sources Checked October 2026: - - - - - - ## Related reading - [Cork vs AQ: a shared cloud workspace, or a coordination layer for the agents you already run](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-aq): Cork vs AQ: AQ hosts multiplayer cloud workspaces for coding agents. Cork coordinates the agents you already run so they stop overwriting each other. - [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 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. 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