Cadence vs Claude Squad a terminal UI or a Mac inbox

Side by side

What Claude Squad does well

Claude Squad is a small, focused terminal app. Run cs in a repository and you get a list of sessions. Each one is an agent in its own tmux session, working on its own git worktree and branch, so agents never edit each other's files.

• Everything from the keyboard. n starts a session, N starts one with a prompt, Enter attaches, Ctrl+Q detaches, Tab switches between the agent's output and its diff, and D ends a session.
• Review, then ship. s commits the session's changes and pushes the branch to GitHub. c commits and pauses a session so you can check out its branch; r resumes it.
• Any terminal agent. Claude Code is the default, and cs -p "codex", cs -p "gemini" or cs -p "aider ..." run others. Profiles live in ~/.claude-squad/config.json.
• Background work. With the experimental -y flag, sessions accept Claude Code's and Aider's prompts on their own.
• Open source and portable. It is AGPL-3.0, runs anywhere tmux does, including over SSH on a server, and costs nothing.

What Cadence does differently

Cadence starts from a different question: not "where does each agent work?" but "which agent needs me right now?"

• A toolbar instead of a list you have to open. One dot per agent sits on the edge of your screen over every app: blue working, amber needs you, green done. You see an agent waiting without switching to a terminal.
• One Inbox for every question. Questions, plan approvals and Allow/Deny requests arrive as cards with numbered options. Press 1 to 9 to answer, and Esc within two seconds to take it back. Finished work arrives with a short recap.
• Claude Code hosted natively. In Cadence chat mode, Claude Code's permission requests become real Allow/Deny cards, you see cost, and each agent gets its own worktree with Diff and History tabs. Codex, OpenCode, Gemini, Amp, Cursor, Copilot, Grok, Pi, Omp and Aider run in herdr terminals and land in the same Inbox.
• Voice. Double-tap ⌥ and say what you want; Talk sends it to the agent already on that work or starts a new one in the right folder. Hold ⌥ to dictate into any app, transcribed on your Mac.
• Your phone and your servers. The iPhone app, in a private TestFlight beta, answers agents from Home, widgets or Siri over an end-to-end encrypted pairing. Since 0.5.7, agents on Linux servers over SSH show up next to the ones on your Mac.

What Cadence does not do: run on Linux or Intel Macs, publish its source, or give terminal agents a worktree automatically. Only Cadence chat agents get one; for terminal agents you point the Folder at a worktree you made.

Which one to pick

Claude Squad is the better pick if

• you work in the terminal all day, often over SSH, and want a keyboard-only tool;
• you want every agent isolated in its own worktree automatically, whichever CLI it is;
• you want open-source software you can read and change;
• you work on Linux or an Intel Mac.

Cadence is the better pick if

• you run agents in several terminal windows, tabs or apps and keep missing the one that is waiting;
• you want to answer approvals and questions without switching windows, or from your phone;
• you want to talk to your agents, or dictate, without sending audio off your Mac;
• you use Claude Code most and want its real Allow/Deny requests, cost and worktree diffs in one place.

Using both

They can share a Mac, but they do not plug into each other. Claude Squad runs its agents in its own tmux sessions. Cadence answers agents in herdr and its own chats. It also notices Claude Code sessions running in other terminals, so it may list Claude Squad's Claude Code agents, but it cannot type into them there. If you like Claude Squad's worktree handling and want Cadence's Inbox, the closest setup is to make worktrees yourself (git worktree add ../app-search -b search) and start an agent in each from Cadence's New agent view. Our guide to running multiple Claude Code agents walks through it.

Common questions