Discount with code applied — 50% off Pro or Max for 6 months
COMPARE · ZEST VS SWARMIA
Sources last reviewed
Swarmia is free for companies with fewer than 10 developers, and its AI adoption and cost module is $5 a developer a month, billed annually.[1] Under 10 developers, start with Swarmia's free plan; Zest is for a team that wants each engineer's agent sessions.
Both post to Slack every day. Swarmia's message covers the team's ongoing work, completed stories and working agreements;[2] Zest's is a standup per engineer, written from that day's coding-agent sessions and pull requests.
Zest gets you:
Free for 3 seats · No credit card
Winding / Teams Last 30 days 
Zest
| Member | AI | PRs/wk | AI Task | Plan | Impl | Last Standup | AI Stack |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22.8/wk | 28 min ago | ||||||
| 15.8/wk | 12 min ago | ||||||
| 4/wk | Aug 14 | ||||||
| — | 2 hours ago |
Demo setups use current model families. The pairings above are the combinations benchmarked by Artificial Analysis; rankings measure performance, not popularity.
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
AT A GLANCE
 Zest | Swarmia | |
|---|---|---|
| A daily message in Slack | Yes: A standup per engineer, written at 6pm in their time zone from that day's sessions and pull requests; Slack or email. | Yes: A daily summary in the team's Slack or Teams channel: ongoing work, completed stories and working agreements.[2] |
| Working agreements | No: Zest sets no targets; the weekly Team Standup points at review waits and oversized pull requests. | Yes: Teams set numeric targets and habits together, and Swarmia tracks them.[3] |
| How it reads AI coding | A plugin or extension in each engineer's coding agent reports every session: model, tokens, skills and MCP tools. | Usage and cost per person from Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Codex; AI cost is “the list price of the tokens”.[4][5] |
| Free plan or trial | Yes: Starter is free for 3 seats, no credit card. | Yes: Free for companies with fewer than 10 developers (Standard features except HRIS and Swarmia AI); trials need no card.[1] |
| Cost for 10 engineers | $144/mo for 10 engineers: one Pro workspace, seats included. | $50/mo for 10 engineers: AI adoption & cost at $5 a developer a month, billed annually.[1] |
| Cost for 20 engineers | $334/mo for 20 engineers: one Pro workspace, seats included. | $100/mo for 20 engineers: AI adoption & cost at $5 a developer a month, billed annually.[1] |
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.
Swarmia's free plan has every Standard feature except HRIS integrations and Swarmia AI, for companies with fewer than 10 developers, and its trials need no credit card. Zest's free Starter covers 3 seats. If what you need is delivery and DORA metrics for a small team, Swarmia's free plan gives you that at no cost.
Swarmia's summary goes to a team channel: what is in progress, which stories closed, and how the team is doing against its working agreements. Zest writes one standup per engineer at 6pm in their time zone, from that day's coding-agent sessions and pull requests, in Slack or by email; the workspace owner also gets a weekly digest. One is a team board; the other is an account of each person's day. More in Slack standup bot.
Swarmia lets a team agree on numeric targets and habits, and tracks how it does against them. Zest sets no targets. Its weekly Team Standup points at review waits, oversized pull requests and phases a cheaper model could run, and leaves the call to the team. LinearB goes further and enforces rules on each pull request.
Swarmia sells each part on its own or bundled, per developer a month, billed annually. The AI adoption and cost plan alone shows usage and cost per person across Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Codex.
| Plan | Per developer a month |
|---|---|
| Free | Free under 10 developers |
| AI adoption & cost | $5 |
| Developer surveys | $9 |
| Software capitalization | $18 |
| Productivity & AI impact | $23 |
| Standard | $45 |
| Enterprise | $55 |
TRY IT ON YOUR TEAM
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.
A FEW THINGS TO KNOW
Swarmia is free for companies with fewer than 10 developers. Paid plans are per developer a month, billed annually: AI adoption and cost alone is $5, Productivity and AI impact $23, Standard $45 and Enterprise $55 (checked October 4, 2026).
When you want each session from the agents themselves (the skills, MCP tools and models behind the work), a standup written from it every evening, and weekly advice tied to named pull requests. Under 10 developers, Swarmia's free plan is a strong place to start.
