compare

Which agent orchestrator should you pick?

Ringlet next to the five tools you're most likely to evaluate. The matrix below is factual — pick the column whose constraints match yours. Two of the comparisons (LiteLLM, OpenRouter) are complementary rather than alternative; the per-vendor pages explain why.

Capability ringlet Claude Squad Conductor LiteLLM OpenRouter
Manages multiple agent CLIs ● Claude Code, Codex, Grok, Droid, OpenCode ● Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Aider ● Claude Code + Codex ○ LLM proxy, not an agent manager ○ model marketplace, not an agent manager
Isolated HOME / config per profile ● Separate $HOME, history, credentials ◐ git-worktree isolation only ◐ git-worktree isolation only ○ — ○ —
Per-profile provider switching ● Bind any agent to any provider ○ Agent's default provider only ○ Agent's default provider only ● Central routing rules ● Hosted marketplace
Token + cost accounting ● Cross-agent, cross-provider, local ○ — ◐ Per-task ● Per-key budgets ● Hosted dashboard
Keychain-backed credentials ● macOS Keychain · GNOME Keyring · WinCred ○ Plain env vars ○ Plain env vars ◐ Env vars or vault ○ API key in env
Browser-accessible remote sessions ● WebSocket PTY · sandboxed ○ Local terminal only ● Local Mac app ○ — ○ —
Sandboxed execution ● bwrap (Linux) · sandbox-exec (macOS) ○ Inherits shell ◐ git-worktree only ○ — ○ —
Event hooks (tool use / stop / notify) ● Shell or webhook on any event ○ — ○ — ◐ Pre/post-call callbacks ○ —
Self-hosted ● Single binary, no daemon ops ● Local TUI ● Local Mac app ● Docker / Python ○ Hosted only
License ● MIT ● AGPL-3.0 ◐ Source-available ● MIT ◐ proprietary SaaS
bottom line

Ringlet is the orchestration tier — not the parallel-runner tier.

If you want long-lived isolated profiles, provider switching, and cross-agent cost accounting, Ringlet is the answer. If you want many agents on git worktrees, run Claude Squad inside a Ringlet profile.