Singularity vs Devin: cloud autonomous agent or local agent workbench

Devin, built by Cognition, is aimed mainly at teams that want to hand whole tickets to an "AI software engineer": you assign a task from the web app, Slack, Teams, Linear or Jira, it works on its own cloud machine and comes back with a pull request. In 2026 the Devin brand also covers a local CLI, a code review product and the former Windsurf editor, now called Devin Desktop.

So the real decision is not "which model writes better code" but where agent work should happen and how you steer it: in vendor-managed cloud sessions, with the PR as the meeting point, or on your own machine, in Git worktrees you can see, review and integrate yourself from a Kanban board.

Comparison verified on October 10, 2026 against Devin’s official documentation and Singularity’s documentation. It compares workflows, not speed or generated-code quality. Public prices are shown in USD/EUR as published, excluding taxes and usage; they may change.

In short

• Devin is first an autonomous agent running in the cloud, each session on its own VM, delivering pull requests; it is complemented by Devin CLI, Devin Review, DeepWiki and Devin Desktop.
• Singularity is a desktop Agentic Development Environment (ADE): editor, terminal, Git client and a Kanban board where each ticket starts an agent in an isolated local worktree.
• Devin sells the agent and model usage (quotas, credits); Singularity is free and drives the CLIs of providers you already use (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Gemini, Mistral, Ollama).
• Devin shines at asynchronous delegation across an organization; Singularity at keeping code, execution and review on your machine, with fine control over Git integration.

About Devin

Cognition describes Devin as "an autonomous AI software engineer that can write, run and test code". It has been generally available since December 2024, when it was offered starting at 500 USD a month for engineering teams; that pricing has since been replaced by individual plans.

According to the documentation, a cloud Devin session has a full desktop environment with a shell, IDE and browser. Devin can run and test its changes in that browser, then open a PR; Auto-Fix lets it respond to review comments and CI failures. The same page recommends tasks that would take a person three hours or less, with verifiable success criteria (tests, CI), and splitting anything larger into smaller sessions. It also encourages running multiple Devins in parallel on independent tasks.

The product now has many surfaces:

• Web app and integrations: sessions started from the web app, Slack, Teams or the API.
• Devin CLI: a local agent in your terminal (macOS, Linux, WSL and Windows), with a /handoff command that sends the conversation, branch and uncommitted changes to a cloud session.
• Managed Devins: a coordinator session can break down a large task and delegate it to child sessions, each in its own isolated VM.
• Playbooks: reusable, shareable prompts (procedure, specifications, advice, forbidden actions) for repeated tasks.
• Devin Review: a PR review platform that groups changes logically, flags bugs and security issues, and works with GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Bitbucket Data Center.
• DeepWiki: auto-generated wikis (architecture diagrams, source links), with a free version for public GitHub repositories.
• Devin Desktop: since June 2, 2026, Windsurf has been renamed Devin Desktop, an IDE with a command center for local and cloud agents. We cover it separately in Singularity vs Windsurf.

On models, Devin CLI lists models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Cognition, plus open models (DeepSeek, Kimi, GLM) and in-house routing modes (Adaptive, Fusion). Data is processed on Cognition’s infrastructure; its security page states that by default data may be used for model training, with an opt-out on paid plans, and never without written consent for Enterprise customers.

Singularity at a glance

Singularity, by Meteor Factory, is a desktop ADE. It combines an editor (CodeMirror 6 with language servers), system terminals, a Git client (graph, diffs, stash, worktrees) and multi-project workspaces. At its core is a Kanban board that acts as an execution surface: a ticket holds the description, priority, dependencies and agent configuration, then keeps the report and resolution.

In worktree mode, every run works in an isolated Git worktree on its own branch; its commits are rebased onto the base branch, and a commit queue serializes concurrent integrations. Depending on your settings, the result is merged automatically or waits for your decision in the Review tab. Agents come from the providers whose CLI you install: Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Gemini, Mistral and Ollama. The app is free; the Singularity Licence (24 EUR per month per workstation, 14-day trial) only unlocks paid Marketplace plugins such as Pipelines. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.

Comparison table

The same feature in both tools

Take a typical request: add a CSV export for invoices, with an API route and a button in the UI.

With Devin

You write the task in the web app (or mention Devin in a Slack thread, or assign it the Linear ticket). Devin starts a session on its VM, clones the repository according to the configured environment, implements, runs the tests and can check the UI in its browser. It then opens a PR; you review it on GitHub or in Devin Review, and it follows up on your comments. To parallelize, you split the work into independent sessions or let a coordinator session start managed Devins. The setup effort goes into the environment: dependencies, secrets and network access, so the VM can actually run the project.

With Singularity

You create two tickets, "export API" and "export button", the second blocked by the first. Each ticket picks its provider and model, for example Claude Code for the API and Codex for the UI. The scheduler starts the first in a worktree; the card shows its phase (reading, writing, testing, committing). If the agent has a question, the ticket goes pending and you answer in the thread. At the end, the diff lands in the Review tab: you annotate a line, rerun with feedback, then merge. The second ticket then starts on the updated base. Everything runs with your local toolchain; there is no remote environment to prepare, but your machine supplies the compute.

Where code and data go

This is the structural difference. A cloud Devin session runs on Cognition’s infrastructure: the repository is cloned there, commands run there, and the session can keep going while your laptop is closed. For enterprises, the pricing page lists deployment in your VPC, and the documentation describes options for running sessions on your own infrastructure. The data policy (training by default with an opt-out on paid plans) deserves a careful read for your plan.

Singularity does not send your files to an intermediary service: its data lives in a local SQLite database. What leaves the machine depends on the selected provider’s CLI and its own terms; with Ollama on the local address, inference stays on the computer. The flip side: a Singularity agent only works while your machine is on, and you manage CLI authentication yourself.

Git, review and integration

Devin aligns with your forge: the pull request is the unit of delivery, and Devin Review adds an organized reading of large diffs, copy and move detection, codebase-aware chat and merge actions from the page. For a team already organized around PRs and CI, that feels natural.

Singularity steps in before the forge. The worktree protects your working tree, local review lets you approve file by file and merge only part of a change ("Merge x/y"), and rebase integration keeps history linear. Parallel tickets can still conflict, even without a Git conflict: tests and human review remain necessary, and you can turn off auto-merge to enforce them. You then push to your forge as usual.

Models and cost structure

With Devin, the agent and the models are billed together. Paid plans include a daily and weekly quota shared across Devin sessions, Devin CLI and Devin Desktop; beyond it, on-demand credits are consumed at API pricing. Usage depends on the number and complexity of actions, plus VM time; an idle session goes to sleep after 30 minutes by default. Devin Review and Automations also draw on those credits.

Singularity does not resell models. You pay your providers (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot or Cursor subscriptions, Mistral keys…) or nothing at all with a local Ollama model. You can pick the model per ticket and exclude expensive ones from automatic selection. The budget is more spread out, but you keep the subscriptions you already have.

Where Devin is stronger

• Asynchronous autonomy: a cloud session keeps working without your machine, has a browser and desktop to test UIs, and can handle CI feedback on its own.
• Organization-wide integration: Slack, Teams, Linear, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, an API and event-driven Automations.
• Parallelism at scale: coordinator sessions that start and monitor many child sessions, each isolated on its own VM.
• Tools around the code: Devin Review for large PRs, DeepWiki to understand a repository, playbooks to capture what worked.
• Enterprise offering: SSO, admin controls, dedicated or VPC deployment, SOC 2 Type II certification.

Where Singularity stands out

• Local, inspectable execution: each agent works in a worktree on your disk that you can open in the editor, the terminal or another IDE.
• A real work environment: editor, LSP, terminals, Git graph and board together, so you can take over without switching tools.
• Choice of agents: seven providers driven through their CLIs, mixable from one ticket to the next, including local models with Ollama.
• Integration control: file-by-file review, partial merge, rerun with annotations, rebase and commit queue.
• Predictable tool cost: the full app is free, with no limit on agents, projects or worktrees.

Can you use both?

Yes, as long as you split the roles. Both tools work on the same Git repository: Singularity for tasks you want to run and review locally, Devin for long or asynchronous tasks that end in a PR. A branch integrated and pushed from Singularity can go through Devin Review like any other PR, and DeepWiki remains handy to explore a public repository. Devin CLI is not a provider supported by Singularity: Singularity’s agents remain the ones listed above. For another terminal-first agent, see also Singularity vs Claude Code.

Which tool should you choose?

• A team that runs its backlog in Slack, Linear or Jira and wants review-ready PRs: Devin.
• A developer or small team that wants code and execution on its own machines and to follow every agent from a board: Singularity.
• Someone already paying for Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot or Cursor who does not want a second model budget: Singularity.
• An organization that requires SSO, VPC and centralized administration for its agents: Devin Enterprise, to evaluate with Cognition.
• Projects whose environment is hard to reproduce in a VM (hardware, local services, specific toolchains): Singularity, which uses your machine as is.

Trial protocol

1. Pick a real task of one to three hours, with tests or CI that can verify the result.
2. In Devin, configure the repository environment, start the task from the web app, and note setup time and the usage reported by Session Insights.
3. In Singularity, add the project, install and authenticate a CLI (Claude Code or Codex, for example), create the ticket with the same description and run it in worktree mode with auto-merge off.
4. Compare both results on the same criteria: green tests, diff size and readability, number of round trips needed.
5. Repeat with two parallel tasks touching nearby files to see how conflicts are handled.
6. Add up the total cost: Devin subscription and credits on one side, your providers’ subscriptions on the other.

Frequently asked questions

Is Singularity a Devin alternative?

For orchestrating several agents on tickets with Git isolation and review, yes. For delegating fully autonomous sessions that run in the cloud while your machine is off, no: Singularity runs agents locally.

How much does Devin cost in October 2026?

According to its pricing page: Free (light quota), Pro at 20 USD per month, Max at 200 USD per month, Teams from 80 USD per month with 40 USD per full seat, and Enterprise on request. Usage beyond the quota is billed at API pricing.

Can I drive Devin from Singularity?

No. Singularity supports Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Gemini, Mistral and Ollama. You can, however, use Devin alongside it on the same repository.

Are Devin Desktop and Windsurf the same thing?

Yes: Cognition renamed Windsurf to Devin Desktop on June 2, 2026. The detailed comparison is in Singularity vs Windsurf.

To go further, browse all Singularity comparisons, read the getting started guide or download Singularity.