Meta Muse vs Agentastic: Cloud Goals or Mac Workflows?

Meta Muse is a strong candidate when you want a hosted personal agent to keep a goal moving. Agentastic is worth evaluating when the immediate task starts in a Mac app and you want to choose its context, tools and model. Both require supervision proportional to what they can change.

Checked October 23, 2026. This is a documentation comparison from the Agentastic team. We have not run a head-to-head test.

What Meta has actually announced

Meta introduced Muse on September 8. Its announcement describes a US rollout on iOS, Android and web, with WhatsApp access. It describes free use plus subscriptions, without enough detail there to calculate an exact allowance. Confirm current terms during onboarding.

The announcement also distinguishes the launched service from a future Confidential VM. Do not assume that announced future protection is already available to your account.

Compare the work environment

Muse’s environment is described in the safety post, and its interface in How We Designed Muse. Agentastic’s corresponding references are first task, agents, scheduler and memory. Editable memory is not exclusive to Agentastic.

A goal needs a review surface

Imagine organizing a family trip. There are dates to agree, documents to find and bookings to consider. Before authorizing purchases, the useful result is a shortlist with travel times, cancellation terms and unanswered questions.

For Muse, evaluate how that plan appears in its goal and activity views. Can you tell which decision is waiting for you? Can you change the travel dates without leaving an old booking task active? These are evaluation questions, not behavior we have tested.

For Agentastic, begin with the itinerary or selected notes in the launcher. Ask for a comparison document with links and a separate list of actions requiring a decision. Use the context guide to add the relevant files. Save the family’s constraints in a project memory file if you want them available to future Mac tasks.

Keep source facts separate from preferences. “We prefer morning departures” belongs in memory. “This fare includes a checked bag” belongs beside a current source and date. Remembering yesterday’s fare does not make it today’s price.

What the safety architecture tells you

Meta describes a separate Sentinel that authorizes connector activity and network requests, with credentials kept outside the agent’s runtime. This is a useful architectural boundary, explained in the Muse safety post. It is not a guarantee against an incorrect booking or misunderstood instruction.

For the family-trip example, distinguish the place where the agent works from the place where you inspect the plan. Muse’s dedicated VM supports a cloud workspace. Agentastic starts from the itinerary and notes you select on the Mac. Choose around where those documents live and how you want to return to the plan between decisions.

Which should you try first?

Try Muse if cloud-based personal goals and its supported connections fit your day. Its own design account is unusually useful for judging the interaction model before signing up.

Try Agentastic if the task begins with selected text, local files or an app on your Mac. Be explicit about execution: local schedules depend on the daemon, and Mac memory files do not automatically establish continuity with every other client. Check access and plans.

For other options, see Duet, dots and the full comparison hub. Our proactive-agent explainer separates background work from permission to act.