Pinvou AgentvsRefact.ai
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Pinvou Agent
Pinvou · IDE extension
#218OSSMCP
Panel
5.52 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.0
- Usefulness
- 5.7
- Cost
- 7.2
- Longevity
- 5.0
“This agent can execute terminal commands and edit multiple files but lacks a sandboxed environment to contain its actions.”
Refact.ai
Refact.ai (Small Magellanic Cloud AI) · IDE extension
#192OSSMCP
Panel
5.33 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.0
- Usefulness
- 5.3
- Cost
- 7.3
- Longevity
- 3.3
“Ships eight agent modes including one called buddy, for when the other seven feel too professional.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Pinvou Agent | Refact.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | IDE extension | IDE extension |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | Yes |
| Browser control | No | Yes |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | Yes |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Codex, Claude Code, Kimi, DeepSeek, Qwen, Doubao, MiniMax, Zhipu (GLM) | Claude, GPT, Gemini, OpenRouter, Ollama |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | free | byok |
| Starts at | n/a | n/a |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| GitHub stars | 2,262 | 69 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Pinvou Agent | Refact.ai | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.3 | 5.5 | Pinvou Agent — Pick Pinvou Agent if you want a free, open-source desktop workspace that integrates coding, design, and work tasks with any model you choose. |
| El Crítico | 4.8 | 5.3 | Refact.ai — The upstream repository smallcloudai/refact is archived and development lives in a personal fork, JegernOUTT/refact, which is a bus factor you can count on one hand. |
| El Profesor | 5.0 | 6.0 | Refact.ai — One Rust binary supervises a warm worker per project, gathers context from AST and semantic search over a local vector index, and applies edits through apply_patch; principled. |
| La Inversora | 4.0 | 3.0 | Pinvou Agent — A feature-rich desktop agent with no clear business model, pointing to a hardware cross-sell or a future acqui-hire. |
| La Jefa | 4.5 | 4.0 | Pinvou Agent — This is a desktop application, not a managed service, and lacks the features required for team deployment. |
| El Hacker | 8.3 | 7.8 | Pinvou Agent — Pinvou is a proper MIT-licensed desktop agent that supports local models and MCP. It's an open workspace I can actually build on, not just a chat window. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.