Codecast vs Delta

The same premise, built two ways

Delta says the thread is where software happens now, so the thread should be the workspace. Codecast is built on the same belief. In both, the conversation with the agent is the unit of work, it syncs to teammates as it happens, anyone with access can read it live and steer it, and you choose whether it runs in an isolated checkout or in your own folder.

The difference is what each product chose to own. Delta owns the agent and the file history: it ships its own harness and its own database of edits, and asks you to work inside its app. Codecast owns neither: it records the agents you already run in your own terminals, keeps files in git, and spends its effort on the layer above, which is the inbox, the memory, the control channel and the work tracking.

Owning the file history gives Delta a few abilities that are hard to get any other way. Owning nothing gives codecast reach: every agent, every machine, every session, including the ones nobody planned to keep.

What Delta has that codecast does not

This list was checked against codecast's source, not its marketing. Each item is something Delta documents as shipped and codecast cannot do today.

1. 1

   A file history that is the ground truth

   DeltaDB records every change to every file in the thread, in order, whoever made it. Codecast's history of each edit is rebuilt from the agent's tool calls, so a change made by a shell command, a formatter or a person's editor is missing until the next snapshot of the tree or the next commit.

2. 2

   Rewind of the conversation and the files together

   Delta reverts a thread to any earlier point and the working tree goes with it. Codecast forks a conversation from any message, but the fork's files start from the current checkout, not from the state the files had at that message.

3. 3

   A working tree that stays synced for everyone

   Each Delta participant gets a checkout that follows the thread, and a browser participant can open any file with no clone. Codecast syncs the transcript and the diffs live, and carries the real tree between machines as a snapshot on a hidden git ref, but that is a transfer at one moment and the web app shows diffs, not the tree.

4. 4

   People editing files inside the thread

   Delta has file tabs with an edit mode, and a person's edits are recorded beside the agent's. Codecast is not an editor, and an edit a person makes in their own editor is not attributed in the record.

5. 5

   Comments that follow the code

   Delta anchors a comment to the change, so it stays on its passage as code moves, and it works on uncommitted work while the agent is mid turn. Codecast anchors a comment to a file and line at a commit or in a worktree diff.

6. 6

   Drafts your collaborators can see

   In a shared Delta thread each person's draft is visible as they type, and every pending draft goes to the agent as one turn. Codecast drafts are private to the window they are typed in, presence is coarse on purpose, and typing indicators exist only in team chat.

7. 7

   A change guide

   A Delta review thread opens with a walkthrough the agent writes: the change in the order that explains it, with focused diffs. Codecast reviews from the transcript and the diff and has no generated walkthrough.

8. 8

   Its own agent across providers

   One harness runs on Anthropic, OpenAI, Copilot, Grok and OpenRouter models, signs in with ChatGPT, Copilot or Grok subscriptions, and a browser turn needs no machine at all. Codecast can switch a session between Claude Code and Codex, but it has no harness of its own, so a provider with no supported agent CLI is out of reach.

9. 9

   Native desktop apps on Windows and Linux

   Codecast's desktop app is macOS only. On Windows and Linux the daemon and the web app cover the same ground without the global shortcuts and native notifications.

What codecast has that Delta does not

Several of these are on Delta's public roadmap, marked here where that is so.

1. 1

   Any agent, any machine, nothing to switch on

   The daemon records Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Gemini sessions wherever they run, including the ones nobody planned to keep. Delta records only work done through Delta's agent; its Claude Code plugin is on the roadmap as in progress.

2. 2

   Memory across every session

   Full text and semantic search over the whole team's history, questions answered across the corpus, and agents that run those queries themselves before they start work. Delta documents search within a thread.

3. 3

   Line attribution

   cast blame resolves any line of code to the conversation and the message that wrote it, in the terminal, VS Code, Cursor and vim.

4. 4

   Remote and cloud runtimes

   Move a live session to another machine with its uncommitted work, or fork branches into worktrees on a cloud host. Delta lists a remote runtime as in progress.

5. 5

   Conversation branching

   Fork from any message, in several directions at once, with the tree shown inline. Delta has subthreads one level deep and lists branching as up next.

6. 6

   Permission prompts, answered from anywhere

   The agent's own permission model stays in force and a prompt can be approved from web, desktop or phone. Delta's agent does not ask before calling tools; permissions and sandboxing are on its roadmap.

7. 7

   MCP servers and mentions

   The agents codecast records already use their own MCP servers, and people, sessions, tasks and docs can be mentioned in docs and team chat. Delta lists both as roadmap items.

8. 8

   Work tracking and automation on the same record

   Tasks, plans, docs, projects, a decisions queue, triggers on a schedule or a webhook, workflows with human gates, pull requests bound to the session that owns them, and org roles with standing sessions.

9. 9

   A phone app

   A native iOS app with push notifications, beside the web and desktop clients. Delta offers its browser viewer on phones.

10. 10

    Open source and your own backend

    MIT licensed, documented for self hosting, with hashed project paths, a privacy level for each conversation and optional encryption the server cannot read. Delta is closed source and stores repository contents on Zed's Cloudflare infrastructure.

Isolation and git

Both products let you choose. Delta defaults to an isolated checkout for each thread under .delta, runs a prepare script when it creates one, and lets you point a thread at your existing folder instead, where threads are no longer isolated from each other. Codecast defaults to your checkout and gives you a git worktree on request: cast ws acquire copies env files, allocates ports and runs the project's setup commands, and a warm pool can keep worktrees ready.

Delta moves commits between machines itself, through a second remote named local that points at your own repository, so a teammate can pick up a branch without origin. Codecast uses git for the same job: a snapshot of the real working tree, uncommitted and untracked files included, goes to a hidden ref on your remote and is restored on the other machine. Codecast's route needs a shared remote; Delta's does not.

Review

Delta's review is the strongest part of the product. The Changes tab shows diffs against the branch base, the last commit or the last turn. You select a passage and type to comment; comments queue until your next message and reach the agent as feedback on that exact passage. A review subthread opens with the change guide and ends with Approve or Request Changes posted back to the parent. A skill marked as a landing action turns the merge into a subthread that runs checks and publishes.

Codecast reviews at three levels. In a conversation you quote any reply, leave notes on diff lines, pick any range of messages to diff, and send the notes as one batched review to the session. Across sessions, a reviewer reads a teammate's transcript and diff and reports back to that session or its owner. On GitHub, cast pr holds notes and submits them as one review with a verdict, and the session that owns the pull request is woken with the whole review as one message.

Safety and where the data goes

Delta's own docs are direct about this: the agent acts autonomously and does not ask before calling tools, there is no sandbox, and Delta runs a repository's prepare script, direnv file and AGENTS.md without asking you to review them first. Permissions, sandboxing and worktree trust are on the roadmap. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest on Cloudflare with Cloudflare managed keys, secrets are redacted on the device before upload, and account deletion is by email.

Codecast leaves the agent's own permission model in place and lets you answer prompts from any device. It redacts secrets before sync, hashes project paths, supports a private, summary only or full visibility level for each conversation, and can encrypt conversation bodies so the server never reads them. The backend is MIT licensed and documented for self hosting.