Cydonia vs Emdash
Both are open-source desktop apps that run several coding agents at once. Emdash runs the agent CLIs it finds installed and pulls tickets from Linear, GitHub and Jira; Cydonia runs ACP agents and keeps its own boards and articles.
Checked against each product's own site on
Emdash and Cydonia are both open-source desktop apps for running more than one coding agent. Emdash drives the agent CLIs already installed on your machine and takes its tasks from the tracker you use; Cydonia installs agents from the ACP registry and keeps tasks and write-ups in the project itself.
| Cydonia | Emdash | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Platforms | macOS, Linux, Windows | macOS, Linux, Windows |
| Agents | Any agent in the ACP registry, or a command of your own | The CLIs it finds installed: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Amp, Devin, Qwen, Droid, Copilot |
| ACP | Yes | No |
| Tasks | Boards of cards in the project, sent to sessions | Tickets pulled from Linear, GitHub, Jira and others |
| Documents | Markdown articles in the project | No |
| Where data lives | .cydonia/ in the project |
A local SQLite database |
When to pick Emdash
- Your tasks already live in Linear, GitHub Issues or Jira, and you want agents to start from those tickets.
- You use an agent CLI it detects that is not in the ACP registry.
When to pick Cydonia
- You want the tasks and what agents write about them kept in the project directory, beside the code.
- You want agents to read and write those boards and articles themselves, through Cydonia's MCP tools.