---
title: Comparison
description: How Fabro compares to AI coding agents, software factories, and orchestration platforms.
---

Fabro is a [dark software factory](/getting-started/dark-factory). It is not an IDE plugin. It is not a REPL, command line or otherwise. It is not a web application where you drag-and-drop workflows or update technical documents (we have Git for those).

Almost every other tool in AI coding starts from the same place: a developer at a keyboard, typing prompts, reviewing responses and outputs. Fabro starts from a different premise — that the highest-leverage work for expert engineers is defining **what** gets built and **how quality is verified**, not supervising each line of code as it's written.

This means Fabro intentionally does not include:

- **An IDE integration** — no VS Code extension, no editor plugins
- **A REPL CLI** — no interactive prompt-response loop
- **Autocomplete** — no inline code suggestions

Instead, Fabro provides workflow graphs, verification gates, multi-model orchestration, and observability — the infrastructure a small team needs to run coding agents with minimal human interaction.

## Notable Comparisons

### Automated Coding Workflows

These are the closest alternatives to Fabro — platforms that structure and automate multi-step coding processes rather than offering a single interactive agent session. They are proprietary products which offer a more "light" software factory approach where humans are still watching and driving.

- **Factory AI (Droids)** — Enterprise coding automation platform
- **Ona (Gitpod)** — Agentic coding platform with cloud dev environments
- **Devin** — Autonomous coding agent by Cognition

### AI Coding REPLs

AI coding REPLs like Claude Code, Codex CLI, and Cursor are interactive, prompt-driven agents designed for single-session tasks. They are powerful pair-programming tools but operate at a different level than Fabro — they lack declarative workflow definition, multi-stage orchestration, and Git-native checkpointing.

REPLs and Fabro pair nicely. REPLs are ideal for exploring ideas interactively — prototyping an approach, testing assumptions, and iterating in real time. When you're ready to move from exploration to implementation, you can hand the work off to a Fabro workflow for the build out.

## Other Comparisons

**8090 Software Factory**

8090.ai is an AI SDLC orchestration platform that structures upstream context — requirements, architecture, and planning — then delegates implementation to external coding agents via MCP. Because 8090 stops before code generation and does not perform coding activities itself, it operates in a different stage than Fabro and is not compared in the sections below.

**OpenAI Symphony**

[Symphony](https://github.com/openai/symphony) is a new multi-agent orchestration framework from OpenAI that dispatches Codex sessions from a Linear issue board. It is currently an engineering preview with a narrow, fixed workflow (poll → dispatch → resolve → land). Because it is early-stage and with a limited implementation, it is not compared in the sections below.

## Comparison Dimensions

<Note>
We strive to keep this information accurate, but the landscape changes rapidly. If you spot an inaccuracy, please [let us know](mailto:hello@fabro.sh).
</Note>

### Licensing

Open source vs. proprietary — trust, auditability, extensibility.

| Tool | License |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Open source, MIT license. Fork and customize. |
| **Factory AI** | Proprietary, closed source |
| **Devin** | Proprietary, closed source |
| **Ona** | Proprietary, closed source |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Proprietary except Codex CLI (Apache 2.0) |

### Workflow Definition

How coding tasks are structured, repeated, and version-controlled.

| Tool | Approach |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Declarative, deterministic workflow graphs with loops, branching, and gates. Version controlled. |
| **Factory AI** | Non-deterministic Markdown skills (custom Droids) and black box Missions stored in a proprietary database. |
| **Devin** | One-off chat tasks or non-deterministic Markdown skills stored in a proprietary database. |
| **Ona** | One-off chat tasks or proprietary, web-based workflow builder. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Not applicable. Imperative prompts with Markdown skills. |

### Model Access

Access to models of various intelligence and costs across providers with per-step control.

| Tool | Models |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Multi-provider with ensembles. |
| **Factory AI** | Multi-provider with ensembles for Missions. |
| **Devin** | Proprietary, black box selection. |
| **Ona** | Multi-provider. One user selection per task. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Locked to REPL provider's ecosystem. |

### Human-in-the-Loop

How and where humans intervene in the workflow.

| Tool | Approach |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Deterministically defined human gates in the workflow, plus ad-hoc injected steering. |
| **Factory AI** | Plan before implementation, then review pull requests. |
| **Devin** | IDE-based mid-task chat intervention plus pull request review. |
| **Ona** | Humans review at the pull request boundary. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | REPL prompts plus permission prompt modes. |

### Multi-Agent Orchestration

How multiple agents coordinate on complex work.

| Tool | Coordination |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Explicit graph of stages that fan out and converge. Deterministic composition of agents, prompts, commands, and gates. |
| **Factory AI** | Hierarchical subagents delegated from a parent Droid. Non-deterministic Missions for parallel feature workers. |
| **Devin** | Opaque internal compound system. Multiple instances run in parallel but users cannot define the orchestration. |
| **Ona** | Fleet of independent agents in isolated VMs. Horizontal scale but no agent-to-agent communication. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Limited. Session-scoped sub-agents or parallel background agents with no shared workflow definition. |

### Execution Environment

Where code runs and who controls the sandbox.

| Tool | Environment |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Local or BYO provider (Daytona, Sprites, exe.dev) and SSH support. |
| **Factory AI** | Local plus cloud VM configured with cloud templates. Enterprise supports air-gapped environments. |
| **Devin** | Proprietary cloud VM managed by Devin ("Devbox") or self hosted. |
| **Ona** | Proprietary cloud VMs managed by Ona (Gitpods) or self-hosted. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Local and proprietary cloud modes. |

### Cloud Sandbox Access

Human access to the running sandbox via preview URLs, SSH, and VNC.

| Tool | Access |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Live preview URLs, SSH, and VNC when using a supported sandbox provider (e.g. Daytona). |
| **Factory AI** | SSH access to cloud environments. No preview URLs or VNC. |
| **Devin** | Browser-based shell and VS Code in the Devbox. No direct SSH or VNC. |
| **Ona** | SSH access to cloud environments. No preview URLs or VNC. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | None. |

### Git Checkpointing

How state is managed during execution.

| Tool | Git behavior |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Commits after every stage with provenance captured. Inspect, revert, or fork from any checkpoint. |
| **Factory AI** | Standard git operations. No per-step checkpointing. |
| **Devin** | Opens pull requests. No per-step git checkpointing. |
| **Ona** | Disposable VMs with pull request output. No per-step checkpointing. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | None. |

### Quality Verification

How the system verifies that generated code meets requirements.

| Tool | Verification |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | First class quality verification system (criteria, controls, evals) combining agent reviews, CI checks, and human approvals. |
| **Factory AI** | Sub-agent code reviews. PR-based human review. |
| **Devin** | Sub-agent code reviews. PR-based human review. |
| **Ona** | Human review at PR boundary. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Manual. User reviews output in the REPL or at the PR boundary. |

### Observability

Can you trace what happened step-by-step? Audit and debug agent behavior.

| Tool | Visibility |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Full trace of every model call, tool invocation, and decision. Cross-run comparison. |
| **Factory AI** | OpenTelemetry-native with dual-export and structured metrics. |
| **Devin** | Session replay with timeline and milestones. Enterprise audit logging. |
| **Ona** | Enterprise audit logging with real-time event streaming. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Varies. Limited to session-level transcripts or enterprise audit logs. |

### Deployment Model

SaaS dependency vs. self-hosted control.

| Tool | Deployment |
|---|---|
| **Fabro** | Self-hosted Rust single binary with no runtime dependencies. |
| **Factory AI** | SaaS with enterprise hybrid and air-gapped options. |
| **Devin** | SaaS only. Enterprise can host execution in customer VPC. |
| **Ona** | SaaS with enterprise self-hosted VPC option. |
| **AI Coding REPLs** | Local CLI tools with optional proprietary cloud modes. |
