Open source alternative to Superset
Superset is an editor built for the case where ten or a hundred agents are working at once, each in a worktree, and it handles that scale better than most things that call themselves editors. The reason people search for an alternative is usually the 2026 licence change: the project moved from Apache 2.0 to the Elastic License, which is source available rather than open source.
Source available under the Elastic License 2.0 since 2026, after starting out under Apache 2.0. ELv2 is not an OSI-approved open source licence: it forbids offering the software as a hosted service and forbids removing its licence keys.
macOS.
Free for individual use under the terms of ELv2.
Why people replace Superset
The licence changed under you
Apache 2.0 to Elastic License 2.0 is a real change, not a formality. ELv2 is not OSI-approved, bars hosted-service use, and bars circumventing licence keys. Companies with an open-source-only policy cannot keep it on the approved list.
A hundred agents, one reviewer
Scaling the number of agents scales the number of diffs. The reading does not scale with it, and past a certain point the merge button becomes a coin flip.
macOS only
Same constraint as most of this category. Remote and Linux work sits outside it.
An editor is a place to type
When most of the code is written by an agent, the hours move from typing to reading, deciding and merging. An editor optimises the part that shrank.
The layer above your agents
Apache 2.0, and it stays that way
One public monorepo, Apache 2.0, covering app, CLI, engine and extension. No hosted-use carve-out, no licence keys to circumvent, nothing that turns into a different licence next year.
The same parallel model
One agent per worktree, per branch, with collision detection so two agents do not edit the same function at once. Aura tracks claims at the symbol level rather than the file level.
Review that scales with the agents
Each change is read as an AST graph and scored against the goal the session was given. You read a verdict and a semantic summary rather than 4,000 lines of red and green.
macOS and Linux, plus a headless CLI
The desktop app ships for both. The CLI runs on a server, which is where long agent runs actually belong.
Aura is not better at everything
- Superset is a genuinely good editor. Aura is not an editor; it opens files and edits them, but Cursor, Zed or VS Code stay better places to type.
- Its agent scale-out UI is more polished at very high fan-out.
- Its community is larger. Aura is younger and the issue tracker is quieter.
The other open-source options
If Aura is the wrong shape for what you need from Superset, these are the projects worth reading first.
How the move actually goes
- 01Clone your repository as normal, or point Aura at the checkout you already have.
- 02Keep your agent subscriptions. Aura drives the CLIs you have installed rather than replacing them.
- 03Move your parallel work over one worktree at a time; both tools use ordinary Git worktrees, so they can coexist during the move.
- 04Write the goal for each session as a sentence. It takes ten seconds and it is what the verdict is measured against.
- 05Use your editor of choice for typing. Aura is the layer that reads, proves and records.
Aura and Superset
Is the Elastic License open source?
No. ELv2 is a source-available licence. The Open Source Initiative has not approved it, and it restricts hosted-service use. You can read and modify the code, which is more than most commercial tools allow, but the term "open source" does not apply to it.
Is Aura an editor?
No, and it does not try to be. It is the layer above the agents: a semantic diff, a goal check, an intent record and a shared history. Keep the editor you like.
How many agents can Aura run at once?
As many as the machine will hold. Each gets a worktree and a branch, with symbol-level collision detection so two of them do not rewrite the same function in parallel.
Does Aura need a cloud account?
No. Everything works against a local repository with no account. The cloud parts are for team sync and can point at your own server.