Turn agent output into reliable delivery. Make human attention go further.
For teams coordinating their own mix of people, coding agents, and tools, Lit Factory is our recommendation. It gives that team one shared working environment for the context, ownership, and decisions behind delivery.
Reviewed . A selected shortlist of Lit Factory, Factory AI, and Cognition's Devin, researched from current product documentation. Published by Lit Factory; recommendations reflect our view. This is a product comparison, not a comparative performance benchmark.
The shortlist
Three ways to run a software factory.
Each product goes beyond a coding session. The choice is which working model you want your team to adopt.
Lit Factory
Our pick for shared human + AI delivery
Choose Lit Factory when your team wants factory capabilities around its existing people, coding agents, and tools. One live Floor connects work, context, ownership, and decisions, with Light, a shared Brain, and task autonomy built in.
Keep the agent environments your developers have made productive. Give the rest of the team a shared place to shape the work and accept the result.
Your team owns: Connect your work and knowledge sources, choose task responsibility, and name the people who own decisions and review. Enterprise deployment runs on your infrastructure.
Getting started: Start free in Lit Factory. Scope an Enterprise deployment with us.
Factory combines its Droid coding agent with Missions for planned, multi-feature execution. Its Software Factory adds an SDLC automation layer spanning intake, validation, release, documentation, and monitoring.
Missions brings collaborative planning, milestones, worker coordination, and validation into the Droid workflow. AutoWiki adds repository documentation.
Your team owns: Configure Droid's environment, connectors, skills, and validation. For Missions, prepare an application that can be exercised and tested by the agent.
Getting started: Droid has app and CLI getting-started paths. The full Software Factory is documented as Private Preview; request access separately.
Cognition's Devin writes, runs, and tests code, with an IDE and browser that people can inspect and take over. Automations connect recurring engineering work to Devin sessions.
A strong fit to evaluate for migrations, bug fixes, maintenance, and parallel engineering tasks. Teams can delegate from their existing tools and inspect the work in Devin.
Your team owns: Set up repositories and environments, provide project knowledge, define completion criteria, and configure the triggers and limits for recurring sessions.
Getting started: Individual and team signup paths are documented, alongside CLI access. Evaluate the plan and deployment options for your organization.
Read across the same questions. Model choice, integrations, human review, and context are shared capabilities in this market. Their presence alone does not tell you how your team will work.
What to evaluate
Lit Factory
Factory AI
Devin
Shared human + agent work
Where does the team work together?
Lit Factory
A shared Floor for people and connected agents, with tasks, discussions, ownership, and review in the same working context.
Organization knowledge supplies project context. Devin also has personal memory across sessions; that personal memory is separate from shared team knowledge.
Build the factory around the team you already have.
Your developers have agents they trust. Your product, design, and engineering teams hold the decisions that shape what those agents should build. Lit Factory brings that work together on the Floor.
Keep your productive setups.
Keep configured coding agents, skills, and team instructions. Add a shared way to coordinate their contribution across the team.
Choose Lit Factory when the next step is to make your people and agents more effective together across tools, with human attention available wherever it changes the outcome.
A self-hosted AI software factory runs the shared work and coordination platform on infrastructure your organization operates. Your team chooses the model endpoints and connected tools it uses. This approach fits organizations that want control over where shared work and knowledge live, how people access them, and which services participate in delivery.
Lit Factory Enterprise brings your database, identity provider, and models to a shared Floor on your infrastructure. Developers keep their configured coding agents while the wider team coordinates context, ownership, decisions, and review. Evaluate how that team works together alongside the deployment and access controls your organization needs.
Choose work that crosses a decision, implementation, and review. Ask the team to show where context comes from, who settles an open question, how that decision reaches execution, and what establishes acceptance. Use the same repository and review standard.
For example, a signup improvement may need a design decision before code can settle the experience. That is an illustrative evaluation task. The useful evidence is how each platform handles the work your team actually needs to deliver.
Compare total operating cost: platform fees, model or agent usage, infrastructure, and the time your team spends configuring and reviewing work. Lit Factory uses shared Sparks with unlimited humans and agents. We do not infer a cross-product cost winner from different billing units.
For teams that want to keep their configured coding agents and connect people, work, context, and decisions across delivery, we recommend Lit Factory. Choose Factory AI when you want to build around Droid and Missions. Evaluate Devin when delegated engineering execution is your starting point. These are fit recommendations, not a claim that one product wins every workflow.
Is a coding agent the same as a software factory?
A coding agent contributes execution. A software factory connects execution to intake, context, decisions, verification, and delivery. A platform can include its own agent, coordinate agents your developers already use, or combine both. This guide compares three products that address that broader workflow.
Can we keep Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Linear, and Slack?
Yes. Lit Factory connects supported coding agents and work tools so your team can keep the environments it uses while coordinating on the Floor. Read access, synchronization, and available actions follow each configured connection and its permissions. The connected-tools guide explains the current scope.
Which platform costs less?
Compare the total for the workflow you plan to run: platform fees, agent or model usage, infrastructure, and operating time. Lit Factory uses a shared Spark budget with unlimited humans and agents, rather than charging for seats. Enterprise terms are scoped separately. This guide does not claim a cost winner across products with different billing units.
Related comparisons and tools you can keep.
Claude Code and Codex can be part of your factory. Linear can remain your planning system. ChatGPT Spaces and Claude Projects can support their own workspace needs. Those choices deserve their own comparisons rather than being presented as the same product category.