Comparison
brainplane and Claude Squad compared
In short
Claude Squad is a free, open source terminal app that runs several Claude Code, Codex, Gemini or Aider sessions in tmux, each in its own git workspace. brainplane is a paid Mac app that shares context between agents, checks handoffs and gathers their questions in 1 Inbox. If you only need parallel sessions in a terminal, Claude Squad is enough.
Updated 9 October 2026. Checked with brainplane 0.2.2.
14 days free with every feature. Email only, no card.
The short version
| Claude Squad | brainplane | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A terminal app that manages several AI terminal agents | A Mac app with a small local service |
| Where it runs | Your terminal, on tmux (needs tmux and gh) | macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon |
| Agents | Claude Code by default; Codex, Gemini, Aider and other local agents | Claude Code, Codex, Grok and 11 more agent tools |
| Isolation | Each task gets its own git workspace | Works with the setup you have; records which session touched which file |
| Questions | You switch to each session | 1 Inbox, 1 card per topic, standing answers for repeat questions |
| Context between agents | Each session on its own | 1 shared brain per topic, context packs of 3,000 tokens at most |
| Auto-accept | An experimental auto-accept mode | Sending, paying, deleting and deploying always wait for you |
| License and price | AGPL-3.0, free | Proprietary, 14 days free; then $12 a month or $99 a year once checkout opens |
Claude Squad facts come from its GitHub README, read on 9 October 2026 (8,586 stars, last push 20 August 2026).
When Claude Squad is enough
- You live in the terminal and want several sessions side by side.
- You want each task in its own git worktree, after you install Claude Squad, tmux and gh.
- You want free and open source.
When brainplane adds something
- You brief several agents on the same work and want them to share it.
- You want a handoff with acceptance checks, or a review by another model family.
- Questions repeat, and you want your saved decisions to answer them with a receipt.
- You want 1 Inbox on the Mac and on your phone for every agent that waits.
Use them together
Start your sessions with Claude Squad. Connect the same agents to brainplane: setup adds 1 MCP server entry to each agent, and brainplane works with tmux sessions. The agents then read the shared brain and send their questions to the Inbox.
Questions
Is Claude Squad free?
Yes. It is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license.
Does brainplane need tmux?
No. brainplane works with sessions in iTerm2, Terminal, tmux and herdr, and with agents it starts itself.
Is brainplane open source?
No. The code is proprietary. Every change to your agent settings is shown first and keeps a backup.
Sources: github.com/smtg-ai/claude-squad, read on 9 October 2026. brainplane facts: docs and FAQ. brainplane has no link with Claude Squad or its makers.