Shelbi vs Devin

At a glance

Checked November 4, 2026. Devin's pricing page lists current rates. Self-serve plans use included quotas and optional paid extra usage; Enterprise billing uses contracted Agent Compute Units (ACUs).

Where Shelbi excels

Your worker pool, in either client. Shelbi's native macOS app and TUI share the same application model and command registry. Workspaces keep their git worktrees between tasks and switch branches for each assignment. You can open a remote workspace's agent, shell, diff and editor from the sidebar. A whole remote project opens in the native window over one SSH relay channel per host, with no port forwarding. Both machines need the same Shelbi version; otherwise Shelbi opens the remote TUI with a version notice.

Devin also supports local work and Outposts on your own hardware. Outposts keeps Devin's planning and inference in its cloud while executing tools on your machines. Shelbi's hub and orchestrator run on machines you manage. There is no Shelbi service fee, but your chosen agents and model providers still have their own costs and data handling.

Choose the agents and orchestration policy. Shelbi launches Claude Code, Codex, or a custom CLI command as a runner. Different agents can use different runners in the same project. Orchestrator onboarding lets you choose its Harness, Default model, and instructions before launch. Workflow definitions and agent instructions remain editable files.

Devin has model choice too: SWE-2, models from other providers, Adaptive routing, and Fusion pairings. Its Desktop ACP integration also accepts third-party agents, including Codex and Claude Agent. Shelbi's advantage is owning and editing the orchestration itself, with CLI runners across your workspace pool.

Review manually, or delegate it explicitly. With Zen Mode off by default, the orchestrator dispatches ready work and leaves handoffs for you. The Review view brings together the task, a review agent, diff and editor tools, and approve or reject actions. Optional Zen Mode lets the orchestrator promote eligible backlog and review and merge passing work under your project's zenmode.md policy. shelbi zen on, shelbi zen off and shelbi zen pause control that delegation.

A board and history you can keep close to the repo. Shelbi supports local markdown issues and a GitHub Issues backend. Choosing GitHub makes its issues the board's source of truth. In both clients, New issue opens New task with Title, Workflow, Status, Priority, Description, and Let Orchestrator write this up. The project's Changelog records shipped work, with shelbi changelog add, list, search and show for agents and scripts. Configuration, instructions and local logs remain inspectable on disk.

Where Devin excels

A managed engineering environment. Devin supplies the agent and its cloud environment, with shell, editor and browser tools. Cognition supports Linux, Windows and macOS VMs. Devin can test an application and send a video recording after opening a PR. Shelbi supplies the coordination and sessions; your selected agent and installed tools do the engineering and testing.

An integrated IDE and review platform. Devin Desktop is available on macOS, Windows and Linux. Its October 23 update brought the web interface into the Agent Window, including local file diffs and terminals on the session's machine. Devin Review organizes PR diffs, explains changes, finds potential bugs, and supports comments and automatic reviews. It added Bitbucket Cloud support on October 21. Reviewing Devin's work does not require leaving its interface for GitHub. Shelbi's native desktop client is macOS-only and works with your configured editor and diff tools.

Team operations beyond a coding queue. Devin combines integrations with Slack, Teams, Linear and Jira with Enterprise SAML/OIDC SSO and dedicated deployment options. Devin Oncall became generally available on October 19 to investigate alerts and incidents. October updates also added enterprise budgets and began migrating Playbooks to Skills. Shelbi's working issue backends are local files and GitHub Issues; Jira and Linear are not implemented. You manage its machines and access.

Built-in repository explanations. DeepWiki generates repository documentation, architecture diagrams and source links. Ask Devin uses that context for codebase questions and planning. Shelbi's Changelog records what shipped; it does not provide an equivalent repository wiki or indexed Q&A service. Those capabilities depend on the agents and tools you connect.

Choosing

Choose Shelbi if you want an open-source orchestrator for a persistent pool of CLI agents on your own machines. Use the native macOS app or TUI, keep local issues or connect GitHub Issues, and choose between manual review and the policy you give Zen Mode. It fits when control of the workflow and infrastructure matters more than having a managed engineering environment.

Choose Devin if you want cloud delegation, a local agent and an IDE in one commercial product, or need Desktop on Windows or Linux. Its managed testing, Devin Review, repository wiki and team integrations give you more built-in services. Check plan quotas and deployment terms against your workload; running on your own hardware through Outposts still uses Devin's cloud agent loop.