atrium — Compare
review — atrium vs Superset

atrium vs Superset

Same worktrees. A much bigger room.

Superset gives every agent an isolated worktree and a persistent terminal. atrium does that too — then keeps the entire room: panes, scrollback, layout, and live agent sessions, through crashes, reboots, and a closed window.

atrium

atrium is the workspace around every coding agent you run. Each task launches into its own worktree-isolated room — terminal, agent chat, editor, browser, tasks, notes — journaled to disk and restored after a quit, crash, or reboot, with a background daemon that keeps agents running even when the window is closed.

Superset

Superset is a macOS desktop orchestrator for running many CLI coding agents in parallel. Each branch gets its own git worktree with a persistent terminal, and the app adds a diff/file editor, a chat panel, an in-app browser, port management, automations, and an MCP server so other agents can drive it.

Feature by feature

FeatureatriumSuperset
Running agents
Parallel agents in isolated git worktreesYes — one room per task, around your existing checkoutYes — one worktree per branch, around your checkout
How an agent runsTerminal PTY or a native chat pane over the tool's own protocolShell process in a terminal, plus built-in Superset Chat
Which agents are first-class10 adapters — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor Agent, Grok, opencode, Antigravity, Kimi, Hermes, omp, piAny CLI agent that runs in a shell
Session detection, resume & activity per agentAdapter-driven — hooks report status, sessions resume by IDTerminal is persistent; no per-agent session model
Agents keep running with the window closedYes — background daemonNot a stated feature
Agent-to-agent messaging & coordinationAgents read each other's panes and message in-workspace
Reviewing the work
Diff review, staging & commitMonaco side-by-side diffs, scales to thousands of filesBuilt-in diff viewer with staging and commit
Comment threads the agent can act onAnchored to code, markdown, and web pages — sent to any agent
Handoff to VS Code / JetBrains / XcodeOpen in your editor from the pane menuOne-click handoff to VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, JetBrains, Xcode
The workspace
Full code editor with LSPMonaco — LSP, git blame, diagnostics, repo-wide searchDiff / file editor
In-app browserChromium pane — DevTools, agent-drivable, page annotationsYes — in-app browser with port management
Notes — Markdown, Excalidraw, Canvas, HTMLYes — a notepad with four note types
Voice dictationYes — push-to-talk, native macOS speech-to-text
LayoutTiling mosaic — rooms, splits, parallel wings, docked panesWorkspace list with a single active view
Automation & control
Scheduled / recurring agent runsTask cards with cron and loop recurrence, overlap gate, watchdogAutomations — schedule recurring agent runs with a prompt
Scriptable CLI for the whole appYes — every pane, room, project, task, browser, and memoryCLI listed as coming soon
MCP server for external agents— (drive it through the CLI instead)Yes — drive Superset over MCP
Memory & recovery
What survives a restartLayout, panes, scrollback, working dirs, env, agent sessionsTerminal sessions survive app restarts
Crash recovery with a restore chooserYes — pick which rooms and panes come backNot a stated feature
Cross-session timeline & full-text searchTimeline, Vault search, Observatory mapPer-workspace
Foundation
PlatformmacOS (Windows / Linux on roadmap)macOS (Windows / Linux coming soon)
Remote / cloud workspaces— (local only today)Remote workspaces in beta on the paid plan
Source availabilityClosed source; adapter SDK is MITSource-available under Elastic License 2.0
PriceFree in early access — bring your own agent subscriptionFree for one user; Pro $20/user/mo — bring your own agent

Comparison reflects publicly documented features as of August 2026. Superset's feature set may have changed since — check their site and tell us if a row is out of date.

Where atrium pulls ahead

Persistent terminals aren't a persistent workspace.

Superset keeps your terminal sessions across an app restart. atrium journals the whole room — pane layout, scrollback, working directories, environment, and the live agent session behind each pane — and restores it after a quit, a crash, or a reboot. When something goes wrong, you pick exactly which rooms come back instead of rebuilding them.

An agent is more than a process in a shell.

Running an agent as a shell process gets you its output. atrium's adapters know each tool: hooks report live status, sessions resume by ID, and a chat pane can render the agent's own protocol — approval cards, streaming diffs, subagent drill-in, plan mode, model switching, steering mid-turn. When you want the TUI instead, the terminal pane is right there.

Close the window. Nothing stops.

atrium runs a background daemon, so agents keep working while the app is closed and reattach when you come back. The workspace isn't the process holding your work hostage.

The room is the product.

Superset gives you worktrees, a diff viewer, a chat panel, and a browser. atrium gives you those plus an LSP editor, task cards with recurrence, four kinds of notes, voice dictation, a repo-wide search pane, cross-session timeline and search, and agents that can message each other — in a tiling mosaic instead of one active view.

And the rest of the workspace

Everything above ships in the same app — these come with it.

Activity sidebar

Every running agent across the workspace, with live status and one-tap messaging.

Skills & named agents

Reusable runbooks and pre-configured agents, launched with +skill and ++agent mentions — across any adapter.

Task cards that launch agents

Fire a card into a fresh worktree, on demand or on a cron cadence, with an overlap gate and a stall watchdog.

Browser page annotator

Comment on a live page like a design review, then send the thread straight to the agent that built it.

Observatory

A navigable 3D night-sky map of every workspace you've ever opened — galaxies, stars, supernovae.

Markdown editor with inline comments

WYSIWYG markdown with comment threads anchored to the text, plus a source toggle and book view.

Repo search

Full-text and regex search across the project, grouped by file, jump to any line.

Themes

Dracula, Nord, Catppuccin, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, and more — or drop in your own JSON theme.

Where Superset fits better

Superset is source-available under ELv2, so you can read it, patch it, and audit it — atrium is closed source apart from its MIT adapter SDK. It treats any shell process as an agent, so nothing needs an adapter written first. It exposes an MCP server, ships remote workspaces in beta, and hands off cleanly to JetBrains and Xcode. If you want a lean orchestrator that fans out worktrees and then gets out of the way while you work in your own IDE, that focus is a real advantage. atrium is betting the opposite way: that the workspace around the agent is worth living in.

Questions

Is atrium a Superset alternative?

Yes. Both are macOS desktop apps that run many CLI coding agents in parallel, each isolated in its own git worktree around your existing checkout, with built-in diff review and an in-app browser. atrium adds full workspace resume after crashes and reboots, a background daemon so agents survive a closed window, native agent chat panes over each tool's own protocol, an LSP editor, and cross-session history.

What's the real difference between them?

Superset orchestrates agents and hands the rest back to your editor. atrium is the place you stay: terminal, agent chat, Monaco editor, browser, task cards, notes, and voice in one tiling mosaic — and the whole arrangement is journaled to disk and restored, not just the terminal sessions.

Does atrium run any CLI agent like Superset does?

You can run any command in a terminal pane, exactly as you would in Superset. The difference is that atrium's ten built-in adapters give those agents first-class treatment — live status, session resume, activity cards, and a structured chat surface — and the MIT-licensed adapter SDK lets you add that treatment for any hook-capable CLI yourself.

Does atrium have automations like Superset?

Yes. Task cards carry a repeat config — a cron cadence, or a loop that refires as soon as the last cycle ends. An overlap gate stops a new fire from stacking on a running cycle, a stall watchdog reaps a hung run, and interrupted recurring runs are recovered on restart.

Can I drive atrium from another agent, like Superset's MCP server?

Through the CLI rather than MCP. Every concept — pane, room, project, workspace, task, browser, memory — is reachable from the atrium command, so an agent inside the workspace can open panes, drive a browser, update task cards, and delegate work to other agents.

Is atrium free like Superset?

Free during early access, with no per-seat tier. Like Superset, atrium never proxies your agents' API calls — they talk directly to their own providers, and your code stays on your machine.

Give your agents a room that lasts.

Free during early access. Bring the agents you already pay for — your code never leaves your machine.

Download atrium for macOS