Superset vs Symphony (2026): Agent Workspace vs OpenAI's Tracker-Driven Orchestration
Compare Superset and OpenAI's Symphony — an interactive workspace for parallel coding agents vs an open-source spec that turns tickets into autonomous Codex runs.
Superset and Symphony both scale coding agents past one-at-a-time, from opposite directions. Superset is an interactive workspace: agents in parallel worktrees with terminals, diffs, and a browser, plus automations for the scheduled slice. Symphony is OpenAI's open-source answer to "stop supervising agents entirely": a headless daemon that continuously reads tickets from your issue tracker, creates an isolated workspace per issue, and runs a Codex session in each until the ticket is done -- "manage work instead of supervising coding agents." It ships as a spec first, with an Elixir reference implementation OpenAI labels an engineering preview.
At a Glance
| Superset | Symphony | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Runs 100+ AI agents in parallel with Git worktree isolation, chat, review, and browser | Turns tracker tickets into isolated, autonomous Codex implementation runs |
| Category | Local-first agent workspace with remote/cloud hosts | Headless orchestration daemon (spec + reference implementation) |
| Agent support | Any CLI agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini, Mistral Vibe, and more) | Codex only (app-server protocol) |
| Control plane | Workspace UI, CLI, MCP server, SDK | Your issue tracker (Linear, GitHub, Jira, Asana, GitLab) |
| Interaction | Live terminals, chat, steering mid-run | None -- fully unattended; status dashboard is read-only |
| Isolation | Git worktree per task on your machines | Git clone per issue in a contained workspace root |
| Review | Built-in diff/file editor, PR flow | On GitHub PRs; agents can land approved PRs themselves |
| Parallelism | Many interactive agents at once | Concurrency caps per state (default 10 concurrent runs) |
| License / status | Source-available (ELv2), shipping product | Apache-2.0; "low-key engineering preview" (v0.0.2) |
What Is Superset?
Superset is a local-first desktop workspace for AI coding agents. It launches Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor Agent, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Mistral Vibe, and other agent workflows inside isolated Git worktrees with persistent terminal sessions. Around that core, it adds a built-in diff/file editor, chat panel, in-app browser for docs and dev servers, port management, and MCP tooling. It also runs across your own network devices through remote and cloud workspaces, and it can schedule agent sessions as automations with a TypeScript SDK and a Slack bot. You can review inside Superset or jump into VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, JetBrains, or Zed. Source-available under Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2).
What Is Symphony?
Symphony is OpenAI's open-source (Apache-2.0) orchestration project for Codex. A long-running daemon polls your issue tracker -- Linear, GitHub, Jira, Asana, or GitLab -- and for each active ticket clones the repo into an isolated per-issue workspace and runs a multi-turn Codex session (app-server mode) that plans on the ticket itself, implements, opens a PR, and moves the ticket through states; after human approval, the agent lands the PR. Policy lives in a repo-owned, hot-reloadable WORKFLOW.md, with concurrency caps, stall detection, retries, and workspace cleanup specified. It is deliberately spec-first: OpenAI recommends teams implement their own hardened version from SPEC.md, and calls the Elixir reference implementation a preview for trusted environments. There is no GUI beyond an optional read-only status dashboard, and it is Codex-only.
Key Differences
The Tracker Is the UI
Symphony's radical simplification is that assigning work is the entire interface: move a ticket to an active state and an agent picks it up; review happens on the PR and the ticket. There are no terminals to watch and no way to steer mid-run. Superset assumes the opposite -- that engineers want to see agents work, interrupt them, run the app in a browser pane, and review diffs before anything lands. Superset's automations and MCP surface cover unattended work too, but the center of gravity is interactive.
One Agent vs Any Agent
Symphony speaks the Codex app-server protocol and nothing else -- no Claude Code, no Gemini, no adapter layer. If your org standardizes on OpenAI, that is coherent; if you want to fan a task across different agents or pick per-job, it is disqualifying. Superset is agent-agnostic by design, running Codex alongside Claude Code, OpenCode, Cursor, and any CLI agent.
Product vs Spec
Superset is a shipping product with onboarding, support, and team plans. Symphony is an engineering preview whose README's first install option is telling your coding agent to build Symphony from the spec -- powerful for teams that want to own a hardened implementation, but you are signing up to operate (or write) infrastructure, with full-auto approval policies in the sample config that demand real trust in your sandboxing.
Autonomy Model
Symphony bets on full autonomy bounded by ticket states: agents work unattended, humans gate at review, agents land the merge. Superset bets on graduated autonomy: interactive when you are present, scheduled automations with an SDK and Slack bot when you are not, and orchestrating agents that spawn workers through the CLI and MCP server -- with humans reviewing in the workspace either way.
Pricing
Superset offers a free tier and Pro at $20/seat/month. Symphony is free and Apache-2.0; you run the daemon on your own infrastructure and pay for Codex usage under your OpenAI plan or API keys. Both are bring-your-own-provider.
Which Should You Choose?
Choose Superset if you:
- Want to see, steer, and review agent work in one workspace
- Run multiple agent brands, not just Codex
- Want automations, an SDK/MCP surface, and team features in a supported product
- Prefer installing an app over operating (or building) a daemon
Choose Symphony if you:
- Are all-in on Codex and want tickets to become PRs with zero supervision
- Have a disciplined tracker workflow and strong CI as the safety net
- Are comfortable running preview infrastructure, or hardening your own from the spec
- Manage work at the board level and rarely need to steer mid-run
Verdict: Symphony is the clearest statement yet of the fully-autonomous thesis -- the ticket board as the only interface -- and its spec is worth reading whatever you run. But it is Codex-only, headless, and a preview by its own label. Superset delivers parallel agent leverage today with the visibility engineers actually want, across any agent, with automations covering the unattended slice. Many teams will eventually want both patterns; Superset is the one you can adopt this afternoon.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Symphony a product like Superset?
Not exactly. Symphony is an open-source spec plus a reference implementation that OpenAI calls a "low-key engineering preview" -- teams are encouraged to build their own hardened version. Superset is a shipping desktop product with a CLI, MCP server, and SDK.
Does Symphony work with Claude Code or other agents?
No. Symphony drives Codex through its app-server protocol exclusively. Superset runs Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini, and any CLI agent.
Does Symphony use Git worktrees?
No -- it clones the repo into an isolated workspace per issue, contained within a workspace root. Superset uses a Git worktree per task, which shares the repository's object store and is cheaper to create.
Can Superset do tracker-driven autonomous runs?
Partially. Superset's tasks integrate GitHub Issues and Linear, its automations run scheduled unattended sessions, and its SDK/MCP surfaces support building tracker-driven pipelines -- but it does not ship Symphony's poll-dispatch-land loop as a turnkey daemon. The inverse gap is larger: Symphony has no interactive workspace at all.