AgentTeams vs Gastown
Terminal-first multi-agent orchestration.
Gastown is strong on scheduling and recovery, and it is genuinely terminal-native. AgentTeams trades some of that CLI power for a visual board, an in-app review flow and a much shorter setup.
- You want to install an app and start in a minute
- You want to see the work rather than read logs
- You need a diff review UI in the same window
- You want to script and schedule everything from a shell
- You are comfortable assembling the stack yourself
- Recovery semantics matter more than a GUI
AgentTeams and Gastown, feature by feature
| Feature | AgentTeams | Gastown |
|---|---|---|
| Live team collaboration | Agents plan, delegate, build and review together | Persistent teams with coordination |
| Kanban board | Five columns, updates in real time | Dashboard, not a board |
| Code review in app | Diff per task, accept, reject, comment | Merge queue, no diff UI |
| Visual team progress | Tasks, blockers, hand-offs, activity, logs | Agent tree and feed panels |
| Agent to agent messaging | Direct messages and shared task links | Mailboxes and hand-offs |
| Budget controls | Alerts plus hard caps on scheduled runs | Cost tiers and digests, no hard cap |
| Built-in terminal | Team and local shells with history | Terminal-first, none built in |
| Built-in code editor | With Git support | Bring your own |
| Separate agent workspaces | Optional workspace per teammate | Core primitive |
| Linked and blocking tasks | Tasks can block and unblock each other | Dependencies and grouped work |
| Mixed runtimes in one team | Nine runtime and provider paths together | Many providers, terminal-first |
| Setup effort | Install and go, no signup or API key | Assemble the stack yourself |
| Runs locally by default | Coordination state stays on your machine | Local process |
| Price to start | Free, open source, free model included | Open source, runtime plans needed |
Is AgentTeams a good Gastown alternative?
Gastown is strong on scheduling and recovery, and it is genuinely terminal-native. AgentTeams trades some of that CLI power for a visual board, an in-app review flow and a much shorter setup.
When should I pick Gastown instead?
You want to script and schedule everything from a shell. You are comfortable assembling the stack yourself. Recovery semantics matter more than a GUI.
Can I use Gastown together with AgentTeams?
In most cases yes. AgentTeams is a coordination layer, so where Gastown exposes a runtime or provider route you can point agents at it and keep using it as the engine while the board, review flow and budgets stay in AgentTeams.
- AnswerWhy not just use the CLI agents directly?Use them — AgentTeams runs on top of them. What it adds is the layer the CLIs leave out: parallel agents with roles, a board that shows state, messages between agents, a diff review UI, and budgets. If you only ever run one agent, the CLI is enough.
- FeatureAgent teamsBuild a team with real roles. Agents work in parallel, talk to each other, and hand off across teams.
- AnswerWhat is AgentTeams?A desktop app for running teams of AI coding agents. It brings its own local coordination layer, so agents can hold roles, claim tasks, message each other and review each other's diffs. You supervise all of it from one kanban board instead of several terminal windows.
Switching from Gastown?
Point AgentTeams at the same repo and run one task through it. If the board does not help, you have lost ten minutes.