AionUi is a free, open-source “Cowork” app: an agent of its own on any API key or local model, 20+ CLI agents it finds and runs (Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes, Gemini CLI and more), office-document assistants, cron tasks, and a WebUI and chat bots to reach it from your phone. That's a lot of app: 290 MB, and release builds send crash reports and a daily copy of recent logs, though its README says nothing is uploaded. Its last release is v2.2.2, from September 9. If you want something smaller, or different, here are the others, and when AionUi is still the one to use.
Pick by why you're leaving. Another all-in-one cowork app with agents of its own: Orkas (free, Mac and Windows), goose or Eigent (open source), or Claude's Cowork if you pay for Claude. To talk to the CLI agents you already run, with no agent of its own: littleguys (small, no telemetry), Agent Hub (with SSH hosts) or Happy Desktop (with a phone app). Coding agents in git worktrees: Orca. In an editor: Zed or a JetBrains IDE runs the same agents over ACP. For Linux, office documents and chat bots in one free app, AionUi is still the one.
A WhatsApp-style chat app for the agents you already run: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Goose, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Hermes and any ACP agent are contacts with their own chats, approvals and routines, and a little guy in the menu bar shows who needs you. It has no agent or model of its own.
Pick it if you don't want another agent, just a small app to talk to the ones you have and answer their requests.
macOS 13+, Apple silicon and Intel; Windows 10+ · Free, MIT, no telemetry · 17 MB · Download it
Orkas by Orkas-AI
A local-first desktop app where a Commander turns your goal into to-dos and hands them to 16 built-in specialist agents and to Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, OpenClaw and Hermes, with projects, scheduled automations and connectors.
Pick it if you want what AionUi does, a team of agents of its own next to your CLI agents, on a Mac or PC. Remote control is only planned.
macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Windows · Free, MIT, with 500 credits for its own models; paid plans not priced yet · 470 MB · site, GitHub, releases
goose by Agentic AI Foundation
A general-purpose AI agent that runs on your computer, as a desktop app, a CLI and an API, with 15+ model providers: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama, OpenRouter, Bedrock and more. It's run by a Linux Foundation project.
Pick it if you want an open-source agent of your own, on your own API keys or local models.
macOS, Windows, Linux · Free, Apache-2.0 · 182 MB · docs, GitHub
Eigent by Eigent AI
An open-source cowork desktop app whose workforce of agents splits a task and works on it in parallel, with a single-agent mode too, on any model, local ones included through Ollama, vLLM or LM Studio.
Pick it if you want a team of agents splitting a task, on your own keys or local models, and don't mind a big download.
macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Windows, Linux · Free with your own keys or local models; Plus $19.99 and Pro $99.99 a month for credits; Apache-2.0 · 659 MB · site, GitHub, releases
Claude's own agent for knowledge work, built on the same architecture as Claude Code, in the Claude desktop app, on the web and on your phone, with scheduled tasks. New Cowork tasks on Pro, Max and Ultra run in Anthropic's cloud.
Pick it if you only use Claude, already pay for it, and are fine with your tasks running on Anthropic's servers.
macOS, Windows, Linux beta; web, iPhone, Android · Needs a paid Claude plan (Pro is $20 a month); closed source · get started, where it runs, pricing
A free desktop app for running Claude Code, Codex, Gemini and more on the subscriptions you already have. Sessions keep running after you quit, new ones run in a sandbox, and its iPhone and Android apps show the same sessions, end-to-end encrypted.
Pick it if you mostly run Claude Code and Codex and want to pick up the same sessions on your phone.
macOS, Windows, Linux; iPhone, Android · Free, MIT; an optional Plus in the iPhone app, $19.99 a month · 141 MB · desktop app, releases, App Store
A chat window over the Claude Code, Codex, Hermes and OpenClaw CLIs, run on this Mac or over SSH on any host you can reach, with a terminal per host. It starts its own session for each thread, and approvals work for Claude Code on this Mac only.
Pick it if you want a plain chat window over the Claude Code, Codex, Hermes and OpenClaw CLIs, on this Mac or on hosts you reach over SSH.
macOS 11+, Apple silicon only · Free, MIT · 194 MB · site, README, approvals
Orca by Stably AI
An open-source app that runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or any CLI agent, each task in its own git worktree, with terminals, diffs you can comment on, a browser, GitHub and Linear, worktrees over SSH, and iPhone and Android apps.
Pick it if your agents write code, and you want each task in its own git worktree, or one prompt run by several agents at once.
macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Windows, Linux; iPhone, Android · Free, MIT · 278 MB · site, README, releases
Zed by Zed Industries
A fast code editor that hosts outside agents over ACP. Gemini CLI, Codex and the rest install from the ACP registry and work in its agent panel, inside your code.
Pick it if you'd rather keep the agents inside your editor, next to your code.
macOS 10.15+, Windows, Linux · Free plan includes outside agents; GPL-3.0 · external agents, pricing
IntelliJ IDEA and the other JetBrains IDEs run ACP agents in their AI Chat. Codex comes built in, Gemini CLI installs from the ACP registry, and neither needs a JetBrains AI subscription.
Pick it if you already work in IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm or another JetBrains IDE.
macOS, Windows, Linux · ACP agents need no JetBrains AI subscription · ACP docs, blog
Checked on November 3, 2026 against each app's own site, docs, README and releases. Also checked, and left out: Cherry Studio (it opens CLI agents in your terminal, not in the app), Outmake (macOS 26 and Apple silicon only; a free beta), Hermes Desktop (Hermes only) and Codex in the ChatGPT app (Codex only). ACP clients for Mac covers the editors in more depth.
If you want one free app with an agent of its own on any API key or local model, that also runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes and 20+ more, with office-document assistants, cron tasks, a leader-and-teammates mode, Linux, and your phone through its WebUI or Telegram, Lark, DingTalk and WeChat bots, AionUi packs more of that into one app than anything here. Orkas, the closest, has no Linux installer, and its remote control is only planned. AionUi's README.