Denly vs Cursor Cloud Agents

Updated 2026-11-06

If Cursor’s ticket-to-PR workflow fits your team, its native surfaces may cover the job. Denly is an alternative when you want to coordinate installed CLIs from several vendors on machines you manage.

Denly is a control plane for coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok Build, Antigravity) that run on your own machines using your vendor subscription or API key. It manages tasks, plans and reviews across projects; Git-backed tasks can open pull requests, while no-Git projects end with a review of local changes. Denly drives the installed Cursor CLI; Cursor Cloud Agents is a separate native workflow.

Our trade-off, first.Work runs only while your machine is awake and online: queued work waits for an available runner. Your Git host receives pushed code and your AI provider receives the context its CLI sends. Denly receives selected uploads, including READMEs, plans, transcripts and no-Git review diffs, that can contain source; see the data boundary and optional encryption coverage.

Cursor Cloud Agents and Denly side by side

Decision	Cursor Cloud Agents	Denly
Managed execution	Isolated VMs with development environments; tasks can run without your laptop connected. Cursor Cloud Agents	Your runner machine hosts the CLI, tools and checkout. You maintain its availability.
Use your hardware	Self-Hosted Machines runs tools on your hardware, with the agent loop in Cursor's cloud. Cursor runtime options	The supported runtime CLI executes on your machine; its AI provider still receives context.
Start and follow work	Slack, Linear, GitHub, web and desktop entry points. Native iOS supports PR review and merge. Cursor Cloud Agents Cursor for iOS	Browser dashboard plus 15 tracker/chat integrations, including Jira, Linear and Slack, with project/member routing.
Billing	Cloud usage draws on an eligible plan at model-specific rates; legacy plan rules differ. Cursor Cloud Agents	Your configured CLI subscription or API key plus Denly's Free or paid plan; no token markup.
Review controls	PR Routing & Approval can assign reviewers and approve low-risk changes using configured criteria. Cursor PR Routing & Approval	Required plan and PR-review steps in a supervised workspace flow; Autopilot must stay off for mandatory human gates.
Collaboration	Team members with repository access can inspect runs; admins can enable team follow-ups. Cursor Cloud Agents	Teams workspaces, project permissions and assignments route work to members' runners.

Product descriptions on this page were read from Cursor’s Cloud Agents, runtime, mobile and PR-approval documentation linked in the table on 6 November 2026. These products change; check their own pages before deciding.

Free and paid Denly plans. Free is for one person with two machines and one active task per machine; storage, schedules and enrollments also have limits. Pro adds parallel execution and higher limits; Teams adds seats and shared workspaces. Your existing vendor subscription or API key pays for AI usage under that provider's terms. Denly never marks up tokens and does not add provider allowance. See pricing and all plan limits.

When to pick Cursor Cloud Agents

Our recommendation: use Cursor's native workflow when the entry points, execution choices and billing fit your team. Hosted work avoids maintaining a Denly execution machine. If hardware ownership is the deciding factor, evaluate Cursor's self-hosted option too; local tools are not unique to Denly.

Neither a generated PR nor an automated approval replaces your acceptance criteria. Cursor describes the scope and limits of its approval system in Cursor PR Routing & Approval. Compare that policy with the human decisions your project requires.

When to pick Denly

Choose Denly when some projects use Cursor CLI, others use Claude Code or Codex, and you want a common task lifecycle across them. You accept runner installation, machine capacity management, selected uploads and a separate coordination plan in exchange for that workflow.

Make the gates policy. Denly's supervised flow is submit task → approve plan → build and run configured checks on the runner → review the PR and decide whether to merge. Workspace flow policy can require a minimum or exact flow. Keep Autopilot disabled when human approval is mandatory: if an owner/admin enables it and a creator opts a task in, that task skips human gates. See flows and gates.

Denly connects 15 tracker and chat tools, including Jira, Linear and Slack. Connections can route tasks to projects and members; Teams permissions and assignments govern shared projects. Each runtime must be installed and authenticated on its runner. This combination is our reason to consider Denly, not a claim that other products lack integrations or collaboration.

Denly does not provide Cursor-hosted environments or reproduce every native Cursor surface. Verify the runtime available on each machine and the data boundary before connecting a project.

See the illustrated workflow demo, then follow the setup documentation with a small task and explicit acceptance checks.

Questions people ask

Can Cursor already start agents from tickets or chat?

Yes. Cursor Cloud Agents documents Slack, Linear and GitHub entry points as well as web access. Integrations alone are not a reason to add Denly.

Is Cursor limited to cloud hardware?

No. Cursor runtime options includes Self-Hosted Machines for tool execution; the agent loop remains in Cursor’s cloud.

Does Cursor have a native iOS app?

Yes. Cursor for iOS documents starting agents and reviewing or merging PRs on iPhone and iPad. Check its current OS and plan requirements.

Is Denly free if I already pay for Cursor?

Denly has a Free plan with its own machine, concurrency and storage limits. Pro and Teams are separate paid plans. Your supported runtime account still pays for AI usage; Denly does not grant extra Cursor allowance.