Instify
Instify vs Nimbalyst: Project Board or Visual Workspace?
Instify and Nimbalyst both put AI coding agents on a kanban board, and both run Claude Code and Codex underneath. But they’re built around different units of work — and the honest answer to “which should I use?” comes down to whether you want a visual workspace you bring structure to, or a project board that brings the structure for you.
One disclosure up front: Instify is our app. Nimbalyst is a genuinely strong tool, it’s free, and for a lot of workflows it’s the better pick. Here’s the fair version.
What Nimbalyst is
Nimbalyst is a free, open-source desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux — a broad visual workspace with AI agents inside it. You get parallel agent sessions, a session kanban board, inline diff review, visual editors for markdown, mockups, and diagrams, optional git-worktree isolation per session, and an iOS companion app. Each card is a session that moves through phases (backlog, planning, implementing, validating, complete). You bring your own AI access — Claude Code, Codex, an API key, or local models — and Nimbalyst is the workspace around them. A paid Teams tier with collaboration features is on the roadmap.
(Facts current as of July 2026 — Nimbalyst’s individual plan is free today; this can change.)
What Instify is
Instify is a Mac-native app where the unit of work is a story, not a session: describe a feature in plain language and Instify expands it into a goal with acceptance criteria, shaped around your project’s tech stack and goals (set once, reused on every run). Running a story dispatches Claude Code or Codex to build it; the board tracks Backlog → In Progress → Done with full per-story run history, and quota-interrupted work queues and auto-resumes on the Pro plan. It’s project management for your agents, not a session monitor.
The differences that matter
| Instify | Nimbalyst | |
|---|---|---|
| Card = | Feature story (goal + criteria) | Agent session (phases) |
| Focus | Project management | Visual workspace |
| Agents | Claude Code + Codex | Claude Code, Codex, API, local |
| Context | Stack + goals baked into every prompt | Per-session |
| Quota interruptions | Queue + auto-resume (Pro) | Manual |
| Editors / diagrams | No | Yes (markdown, mockups, diagrams) |
| Mobile | No | iOS companion app |
| Platform | macOS | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Source | Closed | Open source |
| Price (Jul 2026) | Free plan; $9.99 Standard / $19.99 Pro | Free |
Choose Nimbalyst if…
You want the widest surface for the lowest cost. It’s free, cross-platform, open source, and does far more than a board — visual editors, diagrams, an iOS app, and as many parallel sessions as you can drive. If you already know how you want to plan and just want a powerful, free place to run and review agents (and you’re on Windows or Linux), Nimbalyst is the stronger pick, and we’d point you to it.
Choose Instify if…
You want the tool to impose structure instead of you supplying it. In Instify a card isn’t a session you manage — it’s a feature you describe, that becomes a real story with acceptance criteria, keeps your project’s context across every run, and gets tracked to done. If you think in features (“add password reset”) rather than sessions, want your stack and goals applied automatically, and want interrupted runs to resume themselves across a usage limit, that’s the lane Instify is built for. Mac-only, with a free plan to start.
The honest verdict
This isn’t a “we win” comparison. Nimbalyst is free, cross-platform, and broader; if that’s what you’re optimizing for, take it. What you pay Instify for isn’t running agents — that’s free almost everywhere now — it’s the product-management layer: features as stories, persistent project context, and auto-resume, on a Mac-native board. Pick the one whose unit of work matches how you actually think about the job.
Manage features as stories, not sessions. Mac-native, free to start. Download for Mac → · Compare all alternatives →