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AI · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Grass

Gives your coding agent a dedicated VM that's ready 24/7

Grass provides a dedicated virtual machine for coding agents that runs continuously without requiring setup or configuration. Developers can direct AI coding tools like Claude Code at the VM and monitor progress… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 4 we have checked on their own sites, 4 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1
    1Code▲569

    Just to clarify the background a bit. This project wasn’t planned as a big standalone release at first. On January 16, Ollama added support for an Anthropic-compatible API, and I was curious how far this could be pushed in practice. I decided to try plugging local Ollama models directly into a Claude Code-style workflow and see if it would actually work end to end. Here is the release note from Ollama that made this possible: https://ollama.com/blog/claude Technically, what I do is pretty straightforward: - Detect which local models are available in Ollama. - When…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Put Claude Code tasks on autopilot with smart routines

    Apr 2026 · anthropic.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    I've been working on CloudRouter, a skill + CLI that gives coding agents like Claude Code and Codex the ability to start cloud VMs and GPUs. When an agent writes code, it usually needs to start a dev server, run tests, open a browser to verify its work. Today that all happens on your local machine. This works fine for a single task, but the agent is sharing your computer: your ports, RAM, screen. If you run multiple agents in parallel, it gets a bit chaotic. Docker helps with isolation, but it still uses your machine's resources, and doesn't give the agent a browser, a desktop, or a GPU to…

    Feb 2026 · cloudrouter.dev · its alternatives →

  4. 4
    Replicas▲239

    Hey HN! I'm Connor, creator of Replicas. I'm a heavy Codex/Claude Code user, and I wanted to hand off tasks to agents like I would to an engineer - kick something off before work, let it scaffold while I'm at lunch, even come back to a ready PR. The problem: existing alternatives use workspace VMs that are black boxes. I have no access to any of them - they can't run tests, read logs, or use tools like the Playwright MCP (which I use to verify agents actually fixed what they claim to fix). Replicas gives agents real cloud workspaces where they can: - Run your test suite and read the…

    Jun 2026 · replicas.dev · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Run parallel coding agents from one desktop workspace

    Apr 2026 · claude.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Hi HN! We just launched Verdent, an AI coding agent that actually plans before it codes, tests its own work, and delivers production-ready results without you having to clean up after it. tl;dr Check out the website [1] and read the story [2] - The problem: Current AI tools dump code and leave you to debug. You ask for "build a login endpoint" and get a passwordless JWT mess that doesn't fit your project. We've talked to hundreds of engineers who are frustrated with having to micromanage AI output. - What we built: Verdent works more like a senior engineer. It asks clarifying questions…

    2025 · verdent.ai · its alternatives →

  7. 7
    Runtimefree tier, from $99/mo▲303

    Sandboxed coding agents for everyone on your team

    May 2026 · runtm.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Systematically Coding with Claude Code in the Cloud.

    2025 · cloudcoding.ai · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Schedule recurring tasks locally and in the cloud easily

    Mar 2026 · claude.ai · its alternatives →

  10. 10
    Harness by Autonomousfree tier, from $149/mo▲288

    Every coding agent, every machine, one command center.

    6d ago · autonomous.ai · its alternatives →

  11. 11
    Boxes.devfree tier, from $19/mo▲112

    Hi HN, we’re Nick and Drew, and we’re building boxes.dev – the first cloud-only agentic dev environment (ADE) that gives every Codex and Claude Code agent its own cloud computer. We’re two engineers who previously built Gem (co-founder/CTO and first hire), and we spent the last year coding almost exclusively using Codex and Claude Code. It’s been a huge change to how we code, and it’s been exhilarating seeing the models keep getting better – but we eventually realized that developing on localhost was holding us back: - Git worktrees are clunky to set up and use for parallelizing work -…

    Jun 2026 · boxes.dev · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    WOZCODE▲194

    For the last year we've been building an AI mobile app builder. Last week we decided to generalize our agent harness and benchmark it against vanilla Claude Code. Turns out the tools we built for app building were significantly more efficient than the native Claude Code tools. When we ran benchmarks we beat Claude code on speed (~40% faster) , cost (25-55% cheaper) and performance (+17% on Terminal Bench 2.0). Today we're making our agent harness publicly available as a Claude Code plugin. Use code WOZCODE1 to try it for $1 at wozcode.com

    May 2026 · wozcode.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Build and ship with Claude Code, Codex, Gemini in Netlify

    2025 · netlify.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14
    Epho▲156

    Hey folks, Burak here. Epho is an API that allows running Claude Code, Codex or Opencode in a sandbox in the cloud. It abstracts away sandboxes, and allows running coding agents with a single HTTP request. Epho came out of our own struggles with building our own AI analyst: - Sandboxes give you bare machines; you need to configure them for agentic workloads. - Each agent behaves differently, and you need to build integrations with each of them. - Sandbox providers are not very reliable, which means you need to figure out a multi-provider strategy to avoid failures. - Logging, artifacts,…

    Aug 2026 · epho.io · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Isolated cloud machines for your AI coding agents

    7d ago · buddy.works · its alternatives →

  16. 16
    Viberia▲146

    Hey HN, This is my take on the agent harness. Everything on an isometric map. Agents are grouped into "buildings" that run in a sequence or a loop; e.g., the CodeForge has an agent that writes a PRD, another one that implements, and a third that reviews. Everything is customizable, you build your own buildings/teams however you want. It's a Tauri app, really light (about 8x less energy than the closest competitor I benchmarked, so it actually runs from a coffee shop on battery). It's macOS only for now, but ping me if you are willing to test the Windows or Linux version. I've been…

    May 2026 · getviberia.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17
    Aether▲26

    Since coding agents like Claude Code and Codex came out, I've been pretty obsessed with them. It's hard not to when you're getting a 20x discount on inference. I've also been frustrated by them a lot. I hated walking around with my laptop lid open while connected to a hotspot on my phone, having to tediously accept commands so I don't lose my root directory, and running out of RAM when running multiple agents that were spinning up dev servers in different worktrees at once. A lot of people would say existing cloud agents are the solution to this, as none of the above problems apply to any…

    Jul 2026 · runaether.dev · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    AI powered cli coding agent that monitors your dev/test server and fixes errors and adds features - vysakh0/dravid

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Today I'm releasing Cloud Code: A way to prompt claude code from the cloud. It lets you select a repo, a template of messages (or you can create your own) and you can then create your queries which runs through claude code synchronously to complete your task. Our system is set up for long running tasks and is so new that it doesn't even support streaming yet, we just send the final message at the end of the run. To test its effectiveness, I used it to create the mobile view for the cloudcoding site itself which works really well, meaning you can use it through your phone!

    2025 · cloudcoding.ai · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Hi HN, I’m Michael, I built AgentGrid with my friend Souren because we were tired of losing our coding sessions and couldn't keep track of what was actually being built across our many projects. Our approach was to use an infinite canvas desktop app for the TUIs we already know and love, mainly claude + codex. We drew inspiration from Figma and Railway. Overtime we added image nodes, notes, terminals, coding editors, source control, etc. I wasn't sure about it at first. It took me a month to give the first version Souren built a real try. What got me was an Apple System Update I've been…

    Jul 2026 · agentgrid.sh · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Now that AI is capable of writing large volumes of production-quality code, our role as developers is changing. Our primary job is no longer writing code. It’s planning and communicating software design and architecture. We have to do this collaboratively with agents and then review and iterate on their implementations. IDEs were not built for this workflow. So about three months ago I decided to try to build what I thought this new interface should look like. Runner is a coding agent purpose-built for this new “plan and review” workflow. It’s not for vibe coding. It’s for professional…

    2025 · runnercode.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Tool-agnostic TypeScript library for observing coding agent sessions. Built-in Cursor provider, extensible to Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode. - vtemian/agentprobe

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    AI coding agents that run on your machine, not the cloud

    Mar 2026 · agentfarm.se · its alternatives →

  24. 24
    CodeAgent Mobilefree tier, from $16/mo▲3

    Run & supervise AI coding agents — local, cloud, or your box

    May 2026 · codeagent-mobile.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →