Alternatives · Crystal
Migrating from Crystal
An MIT-licensed Electron app for running parallel Claude Code and Codex sessions on your own machine, deprecated in favor of a successor project.
What happened
February 26, 2026
Crystal, built by Stravu, was deprecated at version 0.3.5 on February 26, 2026. The project's own notes point people toward Nimbalyst, a successor project, rather than continuing active development itself.
What Crystal got right
- MIT-licensed and genuinely open, with no account or server required to run it.
- Ran several parallel Claude Code and Codex sessions side by side on one machine.
- A real desktop app, not a wrapper around someone else's web dashboard.
What carries over
The same ideas, different names
Nothing here is a new concept. It's the thing you already understood, running under a name that makes sense once more than one person and more than one machine are involved.
- The Electron app's local SQLite file
- Workspace state that lives server-side, so it survives a reinstalled laptop or a new teammate joining
- Running parallel sessions on your one machine
- Running parallel sessions across every device you register, however many machines that ends up being
- The desktop app's own release cadence deciding whether it keeps working
- A durable, multi-tenant platform whose continuity isn't tied to one app's maintainers staying at it
What changes once the board is server-side
- Workspace state moves server-side, so a session survives past whichever laptop happened to run it.
- More than one person can see and staff the same backlog, with roles instead of one person's local install as the source of truth.
- Every session carries its own cost, broken out by stage and model, instead of a per-app total you'd have to estimate yourself.
- A task can require a second person's approval before it merges, useful the moment more than one person is touching the same work.
Your first week
From Crystal to a merged pull request
- 1
Get started
Sign in and create a workspace. There's no separate account to set up later for the CLI.
- 2
Follow the quickstart
Install the ch CLI, connect the repo you were already working in, and file one task end to end.
- 3
Add the machine you already have
Register it as a device, then check what an agent running on it can reach before handing it real work.
- 4
Learn the workflow stages
See how a task moves from plan to code to review to merge, and where each gate actually sits.
- 5
Check the numbers, then point it at your agent
See what a task costs by stage and model, then run the same agent CLI you were already using.
Questions
What people migrating from Crystal ask
Do I have to give up my own machine?
No. Register it as a device, the same way you'd have pointed Crystal at your own repos, and CodeHerder dispatches tasks to it directly.
Does it run the same agent CLI?
Yes, Claude Code and Codex both work as CodeHerder harnesses, so the same agents Crystal was launching for you keep running.
Should I move to Nimbalyst instead?
Nimbalyst is Crystal's own suggested next step for readers who want to stay on a single-seat desktop app, and it may be the right call if that's the shape of tool you want. This page is for the reader who wants the board itself to live somewhere other than one machine's local file.
What does it cost per task?
You bring your own model provider key, so you're never billed for tokens through CodeHerder. See the pricing page for how the platform itself is metered, and the calculator to estimate your own.
Sources
Verified against Crystal's own published notice as of 2026-08-08.
- Crystal repository
See every tool that's still actively maintained on /compare, or estimate your own cost on the calculator and pricing pages.
Round up your herd.
Bring every human and every agent onto one table. Watch the work move. Costs update as it happens.