Canonical-URL: https://www.starko.one/blog/factory-ai-droids
Published: 2026-11-03
Author: Stefan Vukmanovic

# Factory AI Droids in 2026: What They Do, What They Cost, and 8 Alternatives

> **Key Takeaways**
> - Factory Droids are coding agents that plan, write, test and ship code from the terminal, desktop, web, Slack, Teams, Jira, Linear and CI.
> - Factory raised $200M at a $5B valuation in September 2026 ([Factory](https://factory.com/news/5-billion-valuation)), and plans run from $20 to $200 a month plus team seats.
> - Most alternatives differ less in model quality than in where a task starts and what comes back for review.

If you typed "factory ai" into a search bar lately, you may have noticed the company moved: factory.ai now redirects to factory.com, and the homepage headline reads "Build Your Software Factory." (Not to be confused with Factory AI the industrial maintenance software that Capterra lists, which has nothing to do with code.)

This guide covers what Factory's Droids actually do today, what they cost, and how eight alternatives compare on the things that decide whether a team keeps paying after the first month: where work enters the agent, where the agent runs, what it hands back, and what the bill is based on. All prices were checked on vendor pages on November 3, 2026.

## What are Factory Droids?

Factory Droids are AI coding agents from Factory that take a task in plain language and "plan, write, test, and ship code" ([factory.com/product/droids](https://factory.com/product/droids)). They run from the command line, a desktop app, the web, mobile, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Linear and CI, so the same agent follows a task from a ticket to a pull request.

The engine underneath changed recently. On October 29, 2026, Factory shipped Droid 1.0, which it describes as "a new engine powering Factory's enterprise agent": the prompts, tools and loop around the model ([Factory, "Droid 1.0"](https://factory.com/news/frontier-harness)). The same release added desktop apps for macOS and Windows, a terminal UI and a TypeScript SDK.

If you read older guides, you'll see named Droids such as a Code Droid or a Reliability Droid. Those names are gone from the current docs. Today a "custom droid" is "a reusable subagent defined in Markdown" ([Factory docs](https://docs.factory.com/user-guides/droids/understanding-droids)), and teams write their own for review, testing or anything else they repeat.

In Linear, an "Open in Factory" link on a ticket starts a session with the ticket as context ([Factory docs, Linear](https://docs.factory.com/integrations/linear)). That's the typical shape of work with Droids: an engineer picks the task, then hands it off.

## What are Factory Missions?

Factory Missions are structured workflows for "large, multi-feature work with Droid" ([Factory docs, Missions](https://docs.factory.com/docs/missions/overview)). You type `/missions` in a Droid session, the Droid plans features grouped into milestones with success criteria, and once you approve the plan, the work moves to Mission Control, where each feature is built and checked with user-facing QA tests.

Missions are built for long jobs. Factory says they run "whether they take six hours or six days," that 14% of missions run longer than 24 hours, and that the longest ran for 16 days ([Factory, "Missions"](https://factory.com/news/missions)). The docs recommend a repository that already scores well on Factory's agent readiness checks, which in practice means good tests and clear setup.

The approval step is worth noticing. A Mission is one of the few places in this category where a person signs off on a plan before code gets written. For multi-week work, that checkpoint matters more than the model.

## How much does Factory AI cost?

Factory AI costs $20 a month for Pro, $100 for Plus and $200 for Max, with Teams at $60 a month per team plus $40 per seat for up to 10 seats, as of November 2026 ([factory.com/pricing](https://factory.com/pricing)). Business and Enterprise are sold through sales and add SSO, SCIM, zero data retention, audit logs and on-premise options.

| Plan | Price | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Pro | $20/month | Desktop, CLI and SDK; cloud and local background agents |
| Plus | $100/month | About 5x Pro's usage; Factory-managed Droid Computers |
| Max | $200/month | About 10x Pro's usage; early access to new features |
| Teams | $60/month per team + $40 per seat | Up to 10 seats, shared billing |
| Business, Enterprise | Contact sales | SSO, SCIM, zero data retention, on-prem, data residency |

Usage is the part to read twice. "Droid sessions consume Factory Standard Credits based on model usage, along with compute usage for Droid Computers," and limits reset on three rolling windows of five hours, seven days and 30 days ([Factory pricing docs](https://docs.factory.com/pricing.md)). Each model carries a multiplier: Claude Opus 5.5 counts 1.6x, GPT-5.4 counts 1x, and GPT-5.5 Pro counts 12x ([Factory docs, models](https://docs.factory.com/models)).

When the plan allowance runs out, you can fall back to Droid Core, a free pool of open-weight models with separate limits, or buy Extra Usage as prepaid credit with a $10 minimum that doesn't expire. Bringing your own model keys is free up to an allowance on individual plans.

## How do you install the Droid CLI?

The Droid CLI installs with one command on macOS or Linux, `curl -fsSL https://app.factory.ai/cli | sh`, and then you start it by running `droid` inside your project folder ([Factory docs, quickstart](https://docs.factory.com/docs/droid-cli/quickstart.md)). Homebrew, npm and Windows PowerShell installs are also supported.

```bash
curl -fsSL https://app.factory.ai/cli | sh      # macOS and Linux
brew install --cask droid                       # Homebrew
npm install -g droid                            # npm
cd /path/to/your/project && droid               # start a session
```

On Linux you also need `xdg-utils` for the sign-in flow.

## How good are Droids compared with other agents?

On Factory's own Terminal-Bench 4 runs from late October 2026, Droid with Claude Opus 5.5 passed 65.2% of tasks at $4.73 per passed task, against 62.1% for Cursor, 59.6% for Devin and 57.6% for Claude Code on the same model ([Factory, "Droid 1.0"](https://factory.com/news/frontier-harness)). With GPT-6.1 Sol, Droid scored 57.6% against Codex at 54.0%.

Treat those as vendor numbers: Factory ran the benchmark and picked the settings. The more useful takeaway is that the harness matters. The same model scored almost eight points apart depending on the agent wrapped around it.

The money says the market believes it. Factory announced a $200 million round at a $5 billion valuation on September 15, 2026, bringing total funding past $400 million, and says "hundreds of thousands of developers" use it ([Factory](https://factory.com/news/5-billion-valuation)).

## Why look past Factory at all?

Factory is a good product, and for many engineering teams it is the right one. Its Droids can "implement backlog work, review pull requests, generate tests, investigate incidents, maintain documentation," according to [factory.com](https://factory.com/). Assign a Linear issue to Factory and the Droid can open a pull request linked to it, per [Linear's Factory integration page](https://linear.app/integrations/factory).

People shop for alternatives for three practical reasons. Some already pay for a model vendor (OpenAI, Anthropic, GitHub) whose agent comes bundled. Some want the agent inside the tool where their code review already happens. And some realize that the expensive part of their week is no longer typing code, which changes what they should be buying.

That third reason deserves its own section.

## The bottleneck moved, and most comparisons ignore it

Agents now write a large share of first drafts. In September 2026, more than 40% of pull requests on GitHub started with an agent's first draft, up from 17% in March, which is about 110 million agent-started pull requests in one month ([GitHub, "Octoverse: Commits, pushes, reach new highs in 2026 as developers build with agents", 2026](https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-commits-pushes-reach-new-highs-in-2026-as-developers-build-with-agents/)). Those pull requests merge, too: 90% of agent pull requests merged within two weeks by September, against about 86% for the rest.

Volume moved the pain downstream. Teams with high AI adoption merged 98% more pull requests, but their review time rose 91% ([Faros AI, "The AI Productivity Paradox Report", 2025](https://www.faros.ai/blog/ai-productivity-paradox-report-2025)). And trust depends on checkability: 48% of developers say they trust AI when they can easily validate its answers ([Stack Overflow, "2026 Developer Survey: AI", 2026](https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/ai)).

So here is the stance this comparison takes. Benchmark scores matter less every quarter because the top models converge. What separates these tools now is the input (who decided this task was worth doing, and with what evidence) and the output (how easy the result is to verify). A fast agent pointed at the wrong ticket just produces a faster wrong pull request.

## How we compared the Factory alternatives

We scored each tool on five criteria, in this order of weight:

1. **Where work starts.** A terminal prompt, an IDE, a ticket someone wrote, a chat message, or a signal from production.
2. **Where it runs.** On your laptop, in a vendor cloud sandbox, or on infrastructure you host.
3. **What comes back.** A diff, a branch, or a pull request with evidence attached.
4. **How you pay.** Per seat, per subscription tier, per usage unit, or per result.
5. **Who it is built for.** Individual developers, platform teams, or product teams.

We did not run head-to-head coding benchmarks. Public leaderboards change monthly and most of these tools let you swap the underlying model anyway. Every price below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, and anything we could not confirm there is left out.

## Factory alternatives at a glance

| Tool | Where work starts | Where it runs | What you get back | How you pay | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Factory (Droids)** | CLI, desktop, web, Slack, Teams, Jira, Linear, CI | Local, or Factory-managed "Droid Computers" (Plus and Max) | Code changes; a pull request linked to the issue | $20, $100 or $200 a month plus credits; Teams $60 plus $40 a seat | Engineering orgs wanting one agent across the lifecycle |
| **Cognition Devin** | Slack, Teams, Linear, Jira, GitHub, alerts | Devin's cloud VMs, plus desktop and CLI | Pull requests | Free tier; $20 and $200 a month; Teams $80 plus $40 a seat | Delegating whole tasks to an autonomous engineer |
| **OpenAI Codex** | ChatGPT web, CLI, IDE, GitHub, Slack, Linear | Local or OpenAI cloud environments | Diffs and pull requests | Bundled with ChatGPT; cloud tasks from the $20 Plus tier | Teams already paying for ChatGPT |
| **GitHub Copilot cloud agent** | GitHub (Agents tab, issues, PRs), Slack, Teams, security alerts, automations | GitHub Actions (59 minute cap) or a cloud sandbox | One branch and one pull request per task | Per user: $10, $39 or $100 a month | Teams whose code and review live on GitHub |
| **Cursor cloud agents** | Cursor desktop, web, iOS, Slack, GitHub and Bitbucket mentions, Linear, API | Cloud VMs or your own machines | Pull requests with screenshots and video | From $30 a month (Premium); Teams from $30 a user | Developers who live in an IDE |
| **Claude Code (cloud)** | claude.ai/code, mobile, desktop, CLI, Slack, routines | Anthropic-managed VM or self-hosted | A branch and pull request; can fix CI failures | Included in Claude subscriptions from $20 a month | Developers already using Claude Code locally |
| **Warp Factories** | Linear, Jira, GitHub and GitLab issues, Slack, Teams, schedules, webhooks | Warp cloud or self-hosted in your VPC | Pull requests; a human merges | $0 plan at API rates plus 20%, Build $20, Business $50 a user; early access | Platform teams building a factory as code |
| **Google Jules** | Jules web prompt, or a "jules" label on a GitHub issue | Google cloud VM | A diff, then a pull request | Daily task limits tied to Google AI plans | Individual developers |
| **Starko** | Customer evidence: support conversations, session replays, page errors | A fresh cloud sandbox per run, with the app running | A draft pull request with reproduction, commands re-run by Starko, a reviewer verdict and CI | Free plan, then paid plans | Product teams whose backlog comes from customers |

Pricing pages: [Factory](https://factory.com/pricing), [Devin](https://devin.ai/pricing), [Codex](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing), [Copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot/plans), [Cursor](https://cursor.com/pricing), [Claude](https://claude.com/pricing), [Warp](https://www.warp.dev/pricing), [Jules](https://jules.google/).

## Is Devin the closest Factory alternative?

Devin is the closest match in spirit: both pitch an autonomous engineer you hand whole tasks to, from the same places your team already talks. Devin takes work from Slack, Teams, Linear, Jira and GitHub, runs each session on its own cloud VM, and returns pull requests. It even accepts triggers from monitoring alerts and some support tools, which puts it closer to production signals than most.

Pricing mirrors Factory's ladder: a free tier, $20 and $200 individual tiers, and Teams at $80 a month plus $40 a seat ([devin.ai/pricing](https://devin.ai/pricing)). If your team likes Factory's model but prefers Devin's interface, switching costs are low. If you dislike the "subscription plus usage" model itself, Devin will not fix that.

## OpenAI Codex and Claude Code: the agents you may already own

The cheapest Factory alternative is often one you are already paying for. A team on ChatGPT Business or a Claude Team subscription has a capable cloud agent included, and finance never has to approve another vendor.

Codex runs tasks locally or in OpenAI's cloud environments and returns diffs and pull requests. It plugs into GitHub, Slack and Linear, and cloud tasks start at the $20 Plus tier, with extra usage bought as credits ([OpenAI Codex pricing](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing)). Claude Code's cloud sessions run on Anthropic-managed VMs, open a branch and pull request, and can go back and fix failing CI or review comments on their own ([Claude Code on the web docs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/claude-code-on-the-web)). There is no separate charge for the VM on Claude subscriptions.

The trade-off is lock-in to one model family. Factory, Warp Factories and Cursor let you switch models; Codex and Claude Code give you their maker's models, tuned well.

## GitHub Copilot's cloud agent keeps everything in the pull request

Copilot's cloud agent works on one branch and opens one pull request per task, inside the platform where your reviews already happen ([GitHub Docs, "About Copilot coding agent"](https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/coding-agent/about-coding-agent)). You start sessions from the Agents tab, from the Copilot panel inside an issue or pull request, from Slack or Teams, or by assigning code scanning alerts during a security campaign. Sessions on GitHub Actions stop after 59 minutes.

For a team that reviews everything on GitHub, that proximity matters more than any feature list. The review queue Faros measured doesn't grow a second front door. GitHub's docs don't list Jira or Linear as places to assign work, so teams planning in those tools will feel the gap.

## Cursor cloud agents are for people who never leave the editor

Cursor renamed its background agents to cloud agents and now runs them in isolated VMs or on your own machines, returning what it calls merge-ready pull requests with screenshots and video attached. You can start them from the desktop app, the web, iOS, Slack, a mention on GitHub or Bitbucket, Linear or the API.

Read the pricing page closely. Cloud agents need the $30 Premium tier or higher; Free and the $8 Plus tier do not include them, and the Plus tier is limited to Grok models ([cursor.com/pricing](https://cursor.com/pricing)). For a developer who already pairs with Cursor all day, handing a task to a cloud agent from the same window is the lowest-friction option on this list.

## Warp Factories and Google Jules: one new, one simple

Warp, best known for its terminal, now sells something with Factory's own vocabulary. Warp Factories lets a platform team define a software factory as code in a `factory.yaml`: repositories, agents, models, permissions and approval gates. Work arrives from Linear, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Teams, schedules or webhooks, runs on Warp's cloud or in your VPC, and ends in a pull request a human merges. It can run Warp's own agent, Claude Code or Codex as the worker. It is in early access, with a $0 plan that bills usage at 20% above API rates and paid plans from $20 a month ([warp.dev/pricing](https://www.warp.dev/pricing)). We compare it with Factory in more depth in [Warp Factories vs Factory vs Starko](/blog/warp-factories-vs-factory-vs-starko).

Jules is the opposite: no configuration language, no fleet. Write a prompt or add a "jules" label to a GitHub issue, and Jules works in a Google cloud VM and returns a diff, then a pull request. Limits are counted in tasks per day: 15 on the base tier, 100 with Google AI Pro and 300 with Ultra ([jules.google](https://jules.google/)). It suits individuals more than teams.

## Starko starts before the ticket exists

Picture a nine-person B2B SaaS team on a Tuesday. Fourteen customers wrote in about CSV imports quietly dropping rows. Session recordings show three more giving up on the import screen without saying a word. Every agent in this list could fix the bug in an hour. None of them will, because nobody has written the ticket yet.

That gap is where [Starko](/how-it-works) works. Its widget records the moments around an error, a rage click or a support conversation, and its AI replays those sessions to ask where the product got in the way. Repeated friction piles onto one recommendation, sized, with the conversations and recordings attached. Page errors are grouped and deduplicated into bug tickets, and none of it reaches the coding agent until a person accepts it or the project's policy allows complete bug reports to start on their own.

Accepted work goes to [Starko AI](/product/starko-ai), which reproduces the problem in a fresh cloud sandbox with the app running and a real browser. When it's done, Starko re-runs your test commands itself and marks the pull request "Verified by STARKO" with the exit codes, next to a reviewer agent's verdict, your CI result and before and after screenshots. You merge from the ticket, or let reviewed, green pull requests merge on their own if you turned that on during setup.

The input is the point. The pull request links back to the ticket, and the ticket holds the customer's own words and the recording of what they did, so the reviewer checks the fix against the report instead of against a summary of it.

Now the honest part. Starko is not a general-purpose terminal or IDE agent. If you want an agent for arbitrary engineering tasks, migrations or refactors your team dreamed up, Factory, Codex or Claude Code will serve you better. Starko is built for the backlog your customers create. The longer argument for that loop is in [What Is a Software Factory?](/blog/software-factory-customer-feedback-to-merged-pull-requests)

## Which Factory alternative should you pick?

- **Pick Factory** if you want one agent platform across CLI, chat, tickets and CI, with enterprise options like on-premise deployment.
- **Pick Devin** if you like Factory's delegation model but want a different interface or pricing ladder.
- **Pick Codex or Claude Code** if your company already pays for ChatGPT or Claude and you want the fewest new vendors.
- **Pick Copilot's cloud agent** if every review already happens on GitHub and you plan work there too.
- **Pick Cursor** if your developers live in the editor and want to hand tasks off without switching tools.
- **Pick Warp Factories** if a platform team wants to design and measure its own factory as code, and can wait for access.
- **Pick Jules** for light, individual use with a Google AI subscription.
- **Pick Starko** if your best ideas for what to fix are sitting in support conversations and session recordings, and you want each fix to start from the customer's own report.

Many teams will run two: a general agent for engineering-driven work, and something customer-driven for the rest. For the full field, including how each agent sandboxes and verifies, see our [background coding agents comparison](/blog/background-coding-agents-compared), and if you're setting one up, [how to build a software factory](/blog/how-to-build-a-software-factory).

## The verdict

Factory is still a fine default for an engineering org that wants one agent everywhere. But the question to ask any alternative is no longer "which model writes better code?" Ask where the work comes from and how easy the result is to check. If the answer you want is "from our customers," [see how Starko turns customer evidence into a merged pull request](/how-it-works).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What are Factory Droids?

Factory Droids are AI coding agents from Factory (factory.com) that plan, write, test and ship code from a plain-language task. They run in the terminal, a desktop app, the web, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Linear and CI. Teams can also define custom droids as reusable subagents written in Markdown.

### What happened to factory.ai?

Factory moved its site to factory.com, and factory.ai now redirects there. The company and product are the same: Factory builds Droids, coding agents that work from the CLI, desktop, web, Slack, Teams, Jira, Linear and CI. The new homepage headline is "Build Your Software Factory."

### How much does Factory cost?

Factory's pricing page lists individual tiers at $20, $100 and $200 a month, and Teams at $60 a month plus $40 a seat, as of November 2026. Usage is metered in Standard Credits that depend on the model, with rolling limits. Business and Enterprise are sold through sales, with Enterprise offering on-premise deployment.

### What is the cheapest alternative to Factory AI?

The cheapest Factory alternative is usually an agent bundled with a subscription you already pay for. Codex cloud tasks start with ChatGPT's $20 Plus tier, Claude Code cloud sessions come with Claude subscriptions from $20 a month, and Copilot's cloud agent starts at $10 a user. Jules has a base tier limited to 15 tasks a day.

### Is Factory AI the same as Factory AI maintenance software?

No. Factory, the coding agent company at factory.com, is unrelated to the industrial maintenance software also called Factory AI that appears on software directories like Capterra. The coding agent product is called Droids; the maintenance product is a CMMS for plants and equipment.

### Which coding agent starts from customer feedback instead of tickets?

Starko starts from customer evidence. Support conversations, session replays and page errors become a sized recommendation before any code is written, and its coding agent builds accepted recommendations in a sandbox and opens a pull request. Devin and Warp Factories can also take triggers from alerts or webhooks, but they start from a task, not from bundled customer evidence.

### Do these agents merge code on their own?

Mostly, no. Every tool in this comparison returns a branch or pull request for a person to review, and Warp Factories states that merging is always the human's decision. Some let you turn on automatic merging when checks pass: Starko asks during setup whether reviewed, green and conflict-free pull requests should merge on their own, with branch protection still applying.