Murmell vs Claude Code on the web
Claude Code on the web gives each session an isolated virtual machine that Anthropic manages, and hands the work back as a pull request. Murmell launches the same Claude Code CLI on its own machines, several agents in one project directory, and other people can watch the terminals while they run. The question is never Murmell or Claude Code: it is where your Claude Code runs, and who can see it running.
What Claude Code already does
Anthropic describes the CLI as available “in your terminal, IDE, desktop app, and browser”, and the browser version runs “on Anthropic-managed cloud infrastructure”. You point it at a repository, it clones the code, works, and pushes a branch. The documentation is explicit about the shape of that machine: “each session runs in an isolated, Anthropic-managed VM”, and “code is analyzed and modified within isolated VMs before creating PRs”.
That isolation is the right design for the thing it does. A task you start and walk away from should not be able to touch anything you did not hand it, and a pull request is a clean place for finished work to wait. You can run several tasks at once, and each one gets its own machine and its own branch.
Where Murmell sits differently
Murmell removes the copies. Several agents run on one cloud machine, in one checkout, and an agent claims a path before it writes to it. The board keeps one holder per path and refuses everybody else until that holder lets go. Nothing has to be merged at the end because nothing forked at the start.
The second difference is who is in the room. A Murmell canvas is multiplayer while the work happens: the windows, the terminal output and the named cursors move under everybody at once. Anthropic is precise about the web equivalent, and the sentence is worth reading closely. Recipients of a shared session “see the latest state when they open the link, but their view doesn’t update in real time”. A link to a session is a report. A canvas is a room.
The third is the agent you are allowed to bring. Murmell is not tied to one vendor: Claude Code, Codex, Kimi and OpenCode run in the same canvas, on the same directory, reserving files from the same board. Two agents from two companies can work on one feature in the same hour.
Where Claude Code wins
Everywhere the work is yours alone, which is most of the time. The terminal, the IDE extensions, the desktop app and the phone are all one engine, and a session follows you between them. Nothing in Murmell competes with typing claude in a project you already have checked out.
Isolation also wins whenever the task should be quarantined. Anthropic keeps git credentials out of the sandbox entirely and handles authentication “through a secure proxy using scoped credentials”. If the job is to let an agent loose on something you have not read yet, a private VM that can only ever produce a pull request is the safer container.
Which to pick
Use Claude Code on its own when one agent is enough and the output belongs in a branch you review later.
Use Murmell when several agents have to touch the same files in the same hour, when the useful thing is a colleague watching the run rather than reading the diff afterwards, or when the agents come from more than one vendor. The CLI is the same either way. Check our Claude Code cloud runner, learn how to use Claude Code without installing anything, or explore the multi-agent canvas.
Side by side
| Claude Code on the web | Murmell | |
|---|---|---|
| Where a second agent works | An isolated virtual machine that Anthropic manages, one per session | One shared directory, after it claims the paths it is about to touch |
| Who can watch it happen | A shared link, which shows the state at the moment it is opened | Anybody with the link, live, with a name on every cursor |
| Where the work lands | A pull request created from the machine | A private repository for the project, pushed as the agents go |
Straight answers
Is Murmell a replacement for Claude Code?
No. Murmell launches the Claude Code CLI on its own cloud machines, so the agent in the window is the one you already pay for. What changes is where it runs and who can see it run.
Can two people watch the same Claude Code session live?
On a Murmell canvas they can, and the terminal contents change under both of them at once. Anthropic documents that a shared web session shows the latest state when the link is opened, and that the recipient view does not update in real time.
Do two cloud sessions of Claude Code share a working directory?
No. Anthropic documents that each cloud session runs in an isolated, Anthropic-managed VM, and that code is analyzed and modified inside those VMs before pull requests are created. Murmell puts several agents in one checkout instead, and gives a file to one agent at a time.