comparison
Pane vs HumanLayer
TL;DR
HumanLayer is a team product for big, complex codebases: it walks Claude Code or Codex through a fixed process of questions, research, a design document your teammates comment on, a plan, and only then code, with every session synced to its cloud so anyone can follow along from a browser. It costs $100 per user a month after a small free tier, needs an account, is closed source, and its desktop app is Apple Silicon Mac only. Pane is free and open source, runs any CLI agent in its real terminal on your own machine, and works on Windows, WSL, macOS and Linux. If your team wants a structured, reviewed planning workflow and can pay for it, HumanLayer is built for that; for a fast, open, local agent workspace, pick Pane.
which one should you pick?
pick humanlayer if
- → your team wants a fixed research, design, plan, build workflow with human checkpoints
- → you want teammates commenting on the agent's design docs and diffs
- → you want every session visible and steerable from a browser or phone
- → you can pay $100 per user a month and accept cloud-synced sessions
pick pane if
- → you want to drive agents directly, without a fixed process
- → you're on Windows, Linux or an Intel Mac, or keep code inside WSL
- → you want agents beyond Claude Code and Codex
- → you want everything local, with no account and nothing synced to a vendor
- → you want free and open source
at a glance
yespartly, or with a catchno
| pane12 yes · 1 partly · 1 no | humanlayer3 yes · 9 partly · 2 no | |
|---|---|---|
| basics | ||
| what it is | desktop app: real terminals for agents, side by side | team app that runs agents through a planning workflow, synced to its cloud |
| made by | Dcouple | HumanLayer (the team behind 12-factor agents) |
| license | AGPL-3.0, open source | closed source |
| price | free | free for 3 members and 200 sessions a month; Pro $100/user/month |
| platforms | ||
| Windows | yes, native app (x64 and ARM64) | daemon only, experimental; browser app as the UI |
| repos inside WSL | yes: agents, terminals and git run in the distro | best-effort, undocumented |
| macOS | yes (Apple Silicon and Intel, signed) | desktop app on Apple Silicon only |
| Linux | yes (AppImage, .deb) | daemon plus browser app; no desktop app |
| agents | ||
| agents | any CLI; Claude Code, Codex, Cursor built in | Claude Code and Codex, plus its own agent |
| how agents run | the agent's own terminal UI | through the Agent SDK, shown in HumanLayer's chat |
| agents that run agents | Sessions, plus the runpane CLI and an MCP server | subagents inside its workflow |
| everyday work | ||
| built-in process | none; you drive the agent | questions, research, design doc, plan, then code |
| team review | no | comments on design docs and diffs, live multiplayer, public review links |
| worktree per task | yes, on by default | yes, with multi-repo workspaces |
| remote and teams | ||
| run on another machine | Remote Pane host over SSH, Tailscale or HTTPS | run its daemon on your own VMs |
| phone | iOS and Android app coming soon; browser app via Remote Pane today | mobile web app (alpha) |
| safety and setup | ||
| account needed | no | yes; the daemon won't start without one |
| where sessions live | on your machine | synced to HumanLayer's cloud (on-prem on Enterprise) |
basics
what it is
pane
humanlayer
team app that runs agents through a planning workflow, synced to its cloudmade by
pane
humanlayer
HumanLayer (the team behind 12-factor agents)license
pane
humanlayer
closed sourceprice
pane
humanlayer
free for 3 members and 200 sessions a month; Pro $100/user/monthplatforms
Windows
pane
humanlayer
daemon only, experimental; browser app as the UIrepos inside WSL
pane
humanlayer
best-effort, undocumentedmacOS
pane
humanlayer
desktop app on Apple Silicon onlyLinux
pane
humanlayer
daemon plus browser app; no desktop appagents
agents
pane
humanlayer
Claude Code and Codex, plus its own agenthow agents run
pane
humanlayer
through the Agent SDK, shown in HumanLayer's chatagents that run agents
pane
humanlayer
subagents inside its workfloweveryday work
built-in process
pane
humanlayer
questions, research, design doc, plan, then codeteam review
pane
humanlayer
comments on design docs and diffs, live multiplayer, public review linksworktree per task
pane
humanlayer
yes, with multi-repo workspacesremote and teams
run on another machine
pane
humanlayer
run its daemon on your own VMsphone
pane
humanlayer
mobile web app (alpha)safety and setup
account needed
pane
humanlayer
yes; the daemon won't start without onewhere sessions live
pane
humanlayer
synced to HumanLayer's cloud (on-prem on Enterprise)Facts checked on October 3 and 4, 2026: HumanLayer desktop 0.180.0, CLI 0.31.201 and Pane v2.4.157. HumanLayer's desktop app is Mac-only and needs an account, so this comparison comes from its docs, changelog, pricing, issues and an unauthenticated run of its CLI.
the real difference: a method or a workspace
HumanLayer sells a way of working for teams. Pane gives you a fast workspace and lets you decide how to work.
HumanLayer comes from the people who popularized context engineering, and the product encodes their method. A task goes through numbered phases: the agent asks questions, researches the code, writes a design document your team comments on like a shared doc, plans, and then writes code, with Linear, Jira, Slack and GitHub intake and admin cost analytics around it. It's meant for large, complex codebases where reviewing the agent's thinking up front saves thousands of wrong lines later.
Pane doesn't prescribe a process. Each task is a pane with its own worktree and the agent's real terminal; you prompt the agent directly, review its diff and commit, or hand the coordination to a Session.
windows, wsl, linux and intel macs
HumanLayer's desktop app is Apple Silicon only; everyone else gets a daemon and a browser app. Pane runs natively everywhere.
HumanLayer's desktop app is for Apple Silicon Macs. On Windows and Linux you run its daemon from npm and use the browser app, which lacks workspace configuration, an embedded terminal and path autocomplete. Its makers call Windows highly experimental, and an open bug means artifacts never sync to disk on Windows. WSL is best-effort, and they suggest a Linux box instead.
Pane installs as a native Windows app on x64 and ARM64, runs agents, terminals and git inside WSL for repos you keep there, and ships signed macOS builds for Apple Silicon and Intel, plus Linux packages.
accounts, cloud and price
HumanLayer needs an account and syncs every session to its cloud. Pane keeps everything local.
Everything in HumanLayer needs a login, and session data, including prompts, messages and tasks, syncs to its cloud; local-only or self-hosted use is Enterprise-only. That's what makes browser and phone access and team review work, but a cloud outage stopped sessions from starting for everyone in September. Pro costs $100 per user a month, on top of your model subscriptions; the free Starter tier allows 3 members and 200 sessions a month.
Pane runs on your machine with no account, and Remote Pane connects to machines you own. It's free.
agents
HumanLayer supports Claude Code and Codex inside its own chat. Pane runs any agent in its real terminal.
HumanLayer drives Claude Code and Codex through their SDKs and shows them in its own chat, alongside its in-house agent. Copilot support was deprecated, and Cursor, OpenCode and ACP agents are open requests. Users have reported the structured workflow burning time and credits on small fixes that plain Claude Code handled quickly.
Pane runs Claude Code, Codex and Cursor with built-in buttons, and any other command line agent as a custom command, exactly as each one looks in a terminal.
our verdict
If you lead a team on Apple Silicon Macs working in a large codebase, and you want a reviewed, documented planning process around every agent task, HumanLayer is built for exactly that, at a team price.
If you want a free, open, local workspace that runs any agent on any OS, including Windows and WSL, pick Pane.
how we checked
HumanLayer's desktop app is for Apple Silicon Macs and everything needs an account, which we don't create during tests. On October 3, 2026 we installed its CLI 0.31.201 from npm in WSL2 with an isolated home folder and ran it without signing in, which confirmed the daemon won't start without an account. The rest comes from its docs, changelog, pricing, privacy policy and public issue tracker. We ran Pane 2.4.155 on Windows 11.
Facts about each product come from its own docs, release notes, pricing and issues, checked on the same dates.
- What we ran
- → Pane 2.4.155 on Windows 11, native and WSL2 (Ubuntu 24.04) repos
- → HumanLayer CLI 0.31.201 in WSL2 without an account; desktop 0.180.0 from its docs, changelog and issues
- Who wrote this
- We make Pane, so we have a stake in this. We tried to be fair: HumanLayer's strengths are listed as plainly as Pane's, every claim was checked against the product itself or its docs and source, and the screenshots are unedited captures from our own runs.
- Corrections
- If anything here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll fix it and update the date at the top. Open an issue on GitHub
- Sources
frequently asked questions
more comparisons
By Parsa Khazaeepoul, co-founder of Pane. .