GILD verdict
Choose Devin when the work is a queue of scoped tickets that should return as pull requests, especially across several Git hosts.
Those runs happen in Cognition's cloud. Choose Factory when you want the agent on your own machines and CI under one policy, a wide model choice, or an air-gapped deployment. Run both on the same tickets and compare merged pull requests, reviewer time, and spend.
Factory wins where the agent loop must run on your own laptops and CI runners; Devin wins where each ticket can run on a Cognition-hosted machine. Droid also draws on Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, and open-weight models, while Devin bills quota and credits. Both take a task, return a reviewable change, and offer a terminal CLI, cloud machines, and ticket delegation.
Choosing between Factory and Devin
Choose Factory if
- You want the agent loop on engineers' machines and CI runners, with the same managed settings everywhere, and cloud machines only where you choose them.
- You want to choose models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, and open-weight providers, or bring your own keys in the CLI.
- Your security review requires agent sandboxes in your own VPC, or a Custom Deployment without a Factory-hosted control plane.
Choose Devin if
- Work arrives as tickets and chat threads, and you want each task worked on a Cognition-hosted machine without an engineer in the session.
- Your repositories live on Bitbucket or Azure DevOps as well as GitHub or GitLab.
- Engineers want to start work from a /devin comment on a pull request.
Side by side
| Dimension | Factory | Devin |
|---|---|---|
| Where the agent runs | Locally in the Droid CLI, desktop app, and IDEs; in CI through droid exec; on Factory-managed Droid Computers | Its own Cognition-hosted machine per session; Devin CLI runs locally |
| Individual priceList prices in US dollars. Included usage differs by plan and is not directly comparable. | Pro US$20, Plus US$100, Max US$200 per month | Pro US$20 or Max US$200 per month |
| Team price | Teams: US$60 per month plus US$40 per seat, up to 10 seats | Teams: US$40 per full seat per month, US$80 monthly minimum |
| Beyond the plan | Free Droid Core fallback after a rate limit, or prepaid Extra Usage from US$10 | Prepaid on-demand credits that roll over; Enterprise billed in ACUs |
| Models | Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, and Droid Core open-weight models, with BYOK in the CLI and desktop app | Cognition's multi-model harness; Devin does not accept your own model API keys |
| Repository hosts | GitHub and GitLab; self-managed GitHub Enterprise Server or GitLab on Enterprise | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps |
| Ticket and chat delegation | Slack, Linear, Jira, and Microsoft Teams through Delegations on any paid plan, individual plans included | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Linear, Jira, and /devin pull request comments |
| Enterprise deployment | Factory Managed, Factory Private with sandboxes in your VPC through OpenCompute, the EU deployment, or a Custom Deployment when policy rules out a Factory-hosted control plane | Multi-tenant Enterprise Cloud, a single-tenant VPC, or Outposts workers you operate, which Pro, Max, and Teams also include |
| Large projects | Missions plan features and milestones and run validated workers for hours | A coordinator session launches managed Devins in parallel |
What practitioners report, side by side
Each product's figures come from its own practitioners, for the group you pick.
Overall signal
All practitioners rate Devin +37, 15 points above Factory at +22. Most of the gap is in praise, with 30 of Devin's 53 sources positive against 26 of Factory's 54. Devin has 12 negative and Factory 14.
The score counts the authors from all practitioners that take a side, one vote each with their latest view, and is how far positive votes lead negative ones, per 100 votes, so Factory's +22 rests on votes split 24 positive, 13 mixed and 13 negative and Devin's +37 on 30, 10 and 11.
A lead of a fifth of the votes reads positive and a lead of half strong positive, with the same lines below zero. The dots show each source, positive, mixed, negative. Use a task pilot to measure accepted work and review time.
Footprint on the Agentic Software Development stack
They differ on one of 12 layers. On Agent runtime, Factory is core and Devin supports it. Coverage is each product's placement on this stack, as its product page shows it. Core is a job the product owns; Supports and Touches are jobs it helps with. Coverage says nothing about how well a product does them.
| Layer | Factory | Devin |
|---|---|---|
| Build | ||
| Agent runtime | Core | Supports |
The 11 layers where they match
| Layer | Factory | Devin |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | ||
| Work planning | Supports | Supports |
| Build | ||
| Codebase context | Supports | Supports |
| Coding | Core | Core |
| Tool execution | Core | Core |
| Validate | ||
| Debugging | Supports | Supports |
| Testing | Supports | Supports |
| Code review | Supports | Supports |
| Application security | Supports | Supports |
| Ship | ||
| Source control | Touches | Touches |
| CI/CD | Touches | Touches |
| Operate | ||
| Observability | Touches | Touches |
What practitioners praise
Among all practitioners, Devin alone has three praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Async delegation and Codebase understanding lead, at 16 of 16 and 14 of 16. Of the two themes both carry, Developer experience differs most. It is praised in 9 of the 21 Factory sources that discuss it, against 8 of 15 for Devin. Model choice and Background & delegated work reach 5 sources from 3 authors only for Factory, at 15 of 22 and 7 of 20. Devin needs a pilot on the same repository tasks before you choose on either.
| Praised for | Factory | Devin |
|---|---|---|
| End-to-end execution | 9 of 9 | 17 of 18 |
| Developer experience | 9 of 21 | 8 of 15 |
| Model choice | 15 of 22 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Background & delegated work | 7 of 20 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Async delegation | Not a theme in its sources | 16 of 16 |
| Codebase understanding | Not a theme in its sources | 14 of 16 |
| Migrations & repetitive changes | Not a theme in its sources | 7 of 7 |
Each count is the sources that praise a theme, or raise it as a concern, out of those that discuss it. A row pairs the two products when both carry a theme under the same or an equivalent name.
A count ending in "so far" has under 5 sources from 3 authors among all practitioners. "Not a theme in its sources" means GILD found no theme of that name in that product's sources.
What practitioners raise as concerns
Among all practitioners, Devin alone has five concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Requires strong review and Unpredictable task success lead, at 11 of 15 and 11 of 17. Both carry Usage and cost. It is raised in 8 of the 15 Factory sources that discuss it, against 11 of 18 for Devin. Factory alone has three concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Reliability & bugs and Permissions & safety controls lead, at 28 of 28 and 11 of 15.
| Raised as a concern | Factory | Devin |
|---|---|---|
| Usage and cost | 8 of 15 | 11 of 18 |
| Reliability & bugs | 28 of 28 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Permissions & safety controls | 11 of 15 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Context & compaction | 7 of 7 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Requires strong review | Not a theme in its sources | 11 of 15 |
| Unpredictable task success | Not a theme in its sources | 11 of 17 |
| Needs close steering | Not a theme in its sources | 9 of 10 |
| Environment & context setup | Not a theme in its sources | 4 of 8 |
| Session speed | Not a theme in its sources | 3 of 5 |
18 sources
- Factory docs: Individual Plans
- Factory docs: Organization Plans
- Factory docs: Available Models
- Factory docs: Custom Models (BYOK)
- Factory docs: Delegations
- Factory docs: Self-Managed Source Control
- Factory docs: Droid Computers
- Factory docs: Factory Missions
- Factory docs: Deployment Patterns
- Devin docs: Introducing Devin
- Devin docs: Self-serve plans
- Devin docs: Usage
- Devin docs: Integrations overview
- Devin docs: Devin CLI
- Devin docs: Advanced capabilities
- Devin docs: Enterprise deployment
- Devin docs: Outposts
- Factory docs: Feature Maturity