--- title: "Cork vs Vibe Kanban: a board for agents vs a guard for shared code · Cork" description: "Cork vs Vibe Kanban: Vibe Kanban plans and runs coding agents in worktrees from a kanban board. Cork keeps parallel agents from colliding at merge." canonical: "https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-vibe-kanban" last_updated: "2026-11-14" published: "2026-10-03" author: "Kevin Vera" --- # Cork vs Vibe Kanban: a board for agents vs a guard for shared code Cork vs Vibe Kanban: Vibe Kanban plans and runs coding agents in worktrees from a kanban board. Cork keeps parallel agents from colliding at merge. By Kevin Vera · October 3, 2026 · [Comparisons](https://corkcli.com/blog/c/comparisons) · 7 min read How is Cork different from Vibe Kanban? Vibe Kanban is an open source app for planning and running AI coding agents: you put issues on a kanban board, and each workspace gives an agent its own branch, terminal and dev server, isolated in a git worktree. Cork does not plan or run agents; it is the [coordination layer](https://corkcli.com/blog/coordination-layer-ai-coding-agents) that keeps several agents, and the people running them, from overwriting each other on one codebase. Worktrees keep agents apart while they work, but their changes still meet at merge time, and that is the gap Cork closes. Worth knowing up front: the company behind Vibe Kanban shut down in April 2026, and the project now continues as community-maintained open source. ## Cork vs Vibe Kanban at a glance | Topic | Cork | Vibe Kanban (as of October 2026) | |---|---|---| | What it is | A coordination layer for multiple AI coding agents on one codebase | An open source kanban board and workspace app for coding agents | | Where agents run | Where they already run, on your machine | Locally, one git worktree per workspace | | Agents covered | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor (hooks), plus any MCP client | 10+ agents, including Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Amp, Cursor and OpenCode | | What is shared | Live code changes, signatures, callers, notes anchored to code | Issues and diffs locally; cloud sharing was switched off after bloop shut down | | Conflict handling | Write gate, live awareness, [semantic lint](https://corkcli.com/blog/semantic-lint), rebase-test-push landing | Isolation by worktree; overlap surfaces when branches merge | | Install | `curl -fsSL https://corkcli.com/install.sh \| sh` | `npx vibe-kanban` | | Open source | Cork Free runs locally with no account | Yes, Apache 2.0, community maintained | | Pricing | Free (local, and 10 agent hours a month in the cloud); $20 a month per 100 agent hours, pooled | Free and open source | ## What is Vibe Kanban? Vibe Kanban, created by bloop (BloopAI), promises to help you "get 10X more out of Claude Code, Codex or any coding agent." Per its GitHub README: - **Kanban planning**: "Create, prioritise, and assign issues on a kanban board." - **Workspaces**: "Each workspace gives an agent a branch, a terminal, and a dev server," backed by [git worktrees](https://corkcli.com/blog/git-worktrees-parallel-ai-coding-agents). - **Review**: "Review diffs and leave inline comments" and send feedback to the agent. - **App preview**: a built-in browser with developer tools and device emulation. - **Git flow**: open PRs with AI-written descriptions, review on GitHub and merge. - **MCP support** and a choice of 10+ coding agents. On April 10, 2026, bloop announced it was shutting down. Its announcement says "the Vibe Kanban project will live on, open source and community maintained," and that local workspaces keep working, while remote services (shared kanban issues, comments, projects and organisations) were removed after 30 days. The project remains Apache 2.0. ## 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 does not run agents or host machines; Claude Code, Codex and Cursor keep running where they already run, and Cork coordinates them through hooks with no extra model calls, plus an MCP server any MCP client can use. - **Briefing**: the exact signatures, callers and recent changes of the code an agent is about to touch. - **Live awareness**: renames and new signatures reach your agent on its next step. - **[Write gate](https://corkcli.com/blog/write-gate)**: an edit against code another agent is changing is held until your agent has their version. - **Semantic lint**: a teammate's rename or signature change becomes a rule your agents are checked against. - **Landing**: `git push` rebases onto teammates' commits, reruns the tests and pushes in one step. - **Agent messaging**, plus `get_symbol`, `blast_radius`, `recap` and `remember`/`recall`. ## Where Vibe Kanban stands out - **A full local workflow.** Plan, run, review and preview in one app. Cork has no board, editor or preview. - **Diff review with inline comments** that go straight back to the agent. - **Built-in app preview** with devtools and device emulation. - **Agent choice.** Switching between 10+ agents per task is easy. - **Free and open source**, with a one-line `npx` install. ## Where Cork wins - **Agent merge conflicts.** Worktrees stop agents from clobbering each other's files mid-task, but two agents that change the same function on different branches still conflict when they merge. Cork's live awareness and write gate catch the overlap while the work is happening. - **Renamed or re-signatured code.** If one agent renames a function another agent calls, semantic lint flags it before the merge breaks the build. - **A clean landing.** Cork rebases onto teammates' commits and reruns the tests before pushing. - **Teams.** Vibe Kanban's cloud sharing is gone; Cork's paid plan connects agents across teammates' machines so they see each other's live changes. - **Measured results.** 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. ## Can you use both? Yes. Vibe Kanban launches Claude Code, Codex and Cursor in their own worktrees, and Cork's hooks run inside those agents. You keep the board, diff review and previews from Vibe Kanban, while Cork briefs each agent on the code it is about to touch, tells it when a parallel agent renames something it depends on, and makes merging back a rebase-test-push step rather than a surprise. It is a good fit for anyone running multiple Claude Code agents in parallel worktrees. ## Pricing compared **Cork:** Cork Free gives unlimited agents and repos on one machine with no account, and all data stays on the machine. Cloud Free (with an account) is 10 agent hours a month per account (30 bonus hours the first month), unlimited repos and agents, 30-day history. Beyond that you pay for agent hours, not seats: $20 a month per unit of 100 hours, pooled across the workspace, graduated to $17 (units 11 to 50) and $15 (51 and up), with 15% off a year. Every member is a player, with teammates' machines, prompts matched to code by meaning, shared knowledge and 90-day history. Enterprise starts from about 100 units. **Vibe Kanban:** free and open source under Apache 2.0. With bloop shut down there is no paid plan or hosted service as of October 2026. ## Bottom line Vibe Kanban is a capable, free way to plan and run [parallel AI coding agents](https://corkcli.com/blog/parallel-ai-coding-agents) locally, now maintained by its community. Its worktrees keep agents apart, but not their changes, and it never tried to coordinate code across agents or teammates. Cork does exactly that, and works inside the agents Vibe Kanban launches. If you are looking for a Vibe Kanban alternative for team coordination, Cork is a complement rather than a replacement for the board. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Vibe Kanban shut down? The company behind it, bloop, shut down on April 10, 2026. The Vibe Kanban project continues as open source and community maintained, and local workspaces still work; the remote services were turned off after 30 days. ### Is Cork an alternative to Vibe Kanban? For the board, no: Cork has no kanban, editor or preview. For the shared, team side that Vibe Kanban's cloud used to cover, Cork's paid plan connects agents across teammates' machines, though at the level of code rather than issues. ### Does Vibe Kanban stop agents from overwriting each other? It isolates each workspace in its own git worktree, so agents do not overwrite each other's files while working. Conflicts between their changes still surface at merge time, which is where Cork helps. ### Can I run multiple Claude Code agents in Vibe Kanban with Cork? Yes. Cork's hooks work inside Claude Code wherever it runs, including Vibe Kanban workspaces. ### Is Vibe Kanban free? Yes. It is Apache 2.0 open source, installed with `npx vibe-kanban`. ## Sources Checked October 2026: - - - ## Related reading - [Cork vs Emdash: an agent workbench vs a coordination layer](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-emdash): Cork vs Emdash: Emdash is an open-source app that runs coding agents in parallel worktrees; Cork keeps those agents from colliding on shared code. - [Cork vs Cursor cloud agents: run agents in VMs, or keep them from colliding](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-cursor-cloud-agents): Cork vs Cursor cloud agents: Cursor runs agents in isolated cloud VMs that open PRs; Cork keeps parallel agents from overwriting shared code. - [Cork vs Sculptor: an app for parallel agents, or a layer that keeps them from colliding](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-sculptor): Cork vs Sculptor: Imbue's Sculptor runs coding agents in parallel in isolated workspaces. Cork coordinates parallel agents and teammates on shared code. - [Cork vs Multica: assigning agent work vs keeping it from colliding](https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-multica): Cork vs Multica: Multica assigns issues to AI coding agents on a shared board. Cork keeps parallel agents from overwriting each other's code. [All articles](https://corkcli.com/blog.md) · [Cork in Markdown](https://corkcli.com/index.md) · [llms.txt](https://corkcli.com/llms.txt) This page in HTML: https://corkcli.com/blog/cork-vs-vibe-kanban