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COMPARE · 8 PLATFORMS

Software engineering intelligence platforms, compared.

Sources last reviewed

Software engineering intelligence platforms measure how teams deliver, and most now measure AI adoption, spend and impact.[1][2][3] Weave, LinearB, Swarmia, Span, Waydev publish per-engineer prices;[2][4][5][6][7] DX and Jellyfish sell by quote, with contracts on AWS Marketplace.[8][9]

Zest is the AI coding analytics option: a plugin in each engineer's coding agent reports every session (models, tokens, skills and MCP tools), and Zest joins it to merged pull requests and writes a daily standup. One workspace price: 5 engineers pay $49/mo on Pro.

Zest gets you:

  • Zest Pro: $49 a month for 5 engineers, seats included
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Free for 3 seats · No credit card

Winding / Teams Last 30 days

Zest

3 Members 1 Agent
Team overview
67%
AI Adoption▲ 34 pts
240
PRs Merged▲ 101
96.1h
Median AI Time▲ 9.5h
57.2h
Build Hours▲ 20.3h
This week
Member AI PRs/wk AI Task Plan Impl Last Standup AI Stack
22.8/wk28 min ago
15.8/wk12 min ago
4/wkAug 14
—2 hours ago
Current AI models & harnesses As of Sep 8
Claude CodeFable 5.1 (max) (with fallback)70.4 · Coding Agent Index
CodexGPT-6 Astra (max)67.0 · Coding Agent Index
Muse CodeMuse Spark 1.3 (xhigh)64.2 · Coding Agent Index
Grok BuildGrok 4.5 (high)64.1 · Coding Agent Index
Kimi Code CLIKimi K362.6 · Coding Agent Index
OpencodeGemini 3.8 Flash (high)61.2 · Coding Agent Index
Cursor CLIComposer 2.5 Fast38.3 · Coding Agent Index

Demo setups use current model families. The pairings above are the combinations benchmarked by Artificial Analysis; rankings measure performance, not popularity.

Claude Fable 5.1 (max with fallback)53.4GPT-6 Astra (max)52.8Claude Opus 5 (max)50.7Muse Spark 1.3 (max)48.2GLM-5.3 (max)44.9Grok 4.6 (high)44.4

Intelligence Index

Illustrative daily trends · Other totals: last 30 days. Build Hours: this week, model-estimated activity including overlap; not engineer hours.

USED BY ENGINEERING TEAMS AT

FlypsCharmWildfiresGeoforgeMisaLabs

AT A GLANCE

Eight platforms on price, method and coverage

Eight platforms on price, method and coverage
ZestWeaveDXJellyfishLinearBSwarmiaSpanWaydev
Cost for 5 engineers$49/mo$210/moFrom $1,250/moFrom $2,567/mo$1,450/moFree$225/mo$245/mo
Free plan or trialYes:Yes:No:No:Partly:Yes:Partly:Yes:
How it reads AI codingA plugin in each agentTool APIs, co-authorship, estimatesA daemon on each laptopGit, planning and workflow signalsAI activity detected across toolsEach tool's usage and token costHooks in each agentEach AI tool's usage data
Developer surveysNo:Partly:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:
DORA metricsNo:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:Yes:
Software capitalizationNo:Yes:Yes:Yes:Partly:Yes:Yes:Yes:
PR automation or AI reviewNo:No:No:No:Yes:No:No:No:
Git hostsGitHub onlyGitHubGitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, AzureGitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, AzureGitHub Cloud; more on EnterpriseGitHub, GitLabGitHub, GitLabGitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure, Gerrit

Each column links to that vendor's own comparison; hover a cell for the sentence behind it. Facts from each vendor's own pages and AWS Marketplace listings, dated in the sources below. ✓ listed, – partly, × not listed on the pages we read, which is not proof the product lacks it.

WHAT IT COSTS

5 engineers, priced per workspace.

Zest charges one workspace price with seats included. Most of the category charges per engineer, or by quote. Switch the team size to see where each lands.

MONTHLY COST, LIST PRICE What your team pays a month
  1. Zest $49/mo
  2. Swarmia $0/mo
  3. Weave $210/mo
  4. Span $225/mo
  5. Waydev $245/mo
  6. DX from $1,250/mo
  7. LinearB $1,450/mo
  8. Jellyfish from $2,567/mo

Zest is one price per workspace with seats included. The others are charted at their cheapest published plan that shows AI use per engineer (Weave Pro at $42 an engineer; LinearB Essentials at $29 a user, at least 50 users; Swarmia AI adoption & cost at $5 a developer, free under 10; Span at $45 a contributor; Waydev Premium at $49 an active contributor), or from their smallest AWS Marketplace contract (DX and Jellyfish). Sources.

What is a software engineering intelligence (SEI) platform?

A software engineering intelligence (SEI) platform measures how an engineering organization delivers: throughput, cycle time, quality and where the time goes. Most now measure AI adoption, spend and impact too.

Where Zest fits

Zest is AI coding analytics: it starts from the coding agents your engineers run, then joins them to what merged on GitHub. It is narrower than the platforms above, with no DORA metrics, surveys, capitalization or PR automation, and GitHub only.

  • Sessions from the agents themselves. Zest's plugins and extension report each session from Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, GitHub Copilot Chat, Grok Build and Hermes: the models, tokens, skills and MCP tools used, and the pull request the session led to.
  • A daily digest instead of status updates. Each engineer's standup is written at 6pm in their time zone from that day's sessions and pull requests and posted to Slack or sent by email; the workspace owner gets a weekly digest that opens with what got done.
  • CheatCodes. Zest pulls the practices that worked (skills, agents and workflows) out of each session, so what works for one engineer can spread to the team.
  • Self-serve, priced per workspace. Starter is free for 3 seats with no credit card. A 10-engineer team pays $144 a month on Pro, for the workspace, not per engineer.

Three questions to answer in a trial

Run a week of real work through Zest and the platform you are weighing (Zest's Starter plan is free for 3 seats), then ask:

  • Which coding agents, models, skills and MCP tools does each engineer actually use, and which ones are spreading across the team?
  • What did each AI session cost, and did it end in a merged pull request?
  • What should the team change next week, and does the tool name the work its advice is based on?

TRY IT ON YOUR TEAM

See what your team ships with AI.

Starter is free (3 seats, no credit card). Pro is $49 a month with 5 seats and Max is $149 a month with 10 seats — priced per workspace, not per engineer, with extra seats at $19 a month.

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A FEW THINGS TO KNOW

Questions

Which engineering intelligence platforms publish their prices?+

Weave, LinearB, Swarmia, Span, Waydev publish per-engineer prices. DX and Jellyfish sell by quote, and list a smallest contract on AWS Marketplace. Zest publishes per-workspace prices (checked October 4, 2026).

Which one is free for a small team?+

Swarmia is free for companies with fewer than 10 developers, Waydev has a Start Up plan from $0, Weave's Starter is free with org-level metrics, LinearB offers a 45-day trial, and Zest's Starter is free for 3 seats with no credit card (checked October 4, 2026).

How long does it take to set up?+

Minutes. An admin installs the Zest GitHub App and picks repositories (the history backfill can take a few minutes for larger orgs), and each engineer adds the Zest plugin or extension to their coding agent. Nothing changes about how anyone works.