Dexto vs Claude: Which Should You Use (and Can You Use Both)?

You ask Claude to pull last week's merged pull requests, check them against the issue tracker, and write the release update. It does a good job. Next Friday you open a new chat and explain the whole thing again. The week after, you are on a flight and nothing happens at all.

That is usually the moment people search for “Dexto vs Claude”. The honest answer is that they overlap less than the search suggests. Claude is a model family and a set of first-party apps. Dexto is a cloud workspace where agents run on any model, including Claude models. You can also connect the two.

What is the difference between Dexto and Claude?

Claude is Anthropic's AI model family and the apps built around it: the Claude chat apps, Claude Code, and the Claude API. Dexto is a model-agnostic agent workspace: it gives agents a persistent cloud computer, 50+ connections, skills, memory, and scheduled loops, and lets you pick from 400+ models, including Claude models.

The Claude column is based on Anthropic's plans page and Claude Code documentation as of September 2026. Plans and previews change, so check those pages before you decide.

Can I use Claude models in Dexto?

Yes. Dexto's model catalog includes Anthropic's current Claude models, including Claude Opus 5, Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Claude Haiku 4.5. You can pay for them with Dexto credits or add your own Anthropic API key in Model settings.

The difference is that you are not locked to one provider. The same agent can run on a Claude model this month and a GPT, Gemini, or Grok model next month, without rebuilding its connections, skills, or schedule. That matters for three practical reasons:

• Cost. A nightly triage job rarely needs the most expensive model. A small fast model handles it, and you keep the larger model for the work that needs it.
• Fit. Models differ on coding, long documents, images, and speed. Our guide to choosing a model walks through the tradeoffs.
• Continuity. When a provider has an outage, changes a price, or ships a better model, you change one setting.

Dexto also includes image, video, and audio generation models under the same credit balance, which Claude's apps do not offer as first-party models.

To be fair about the tradeoff: if you only ever want Claude models, Anthropic's own apps give you the most direct access to them, a flat monthly price, and features that are tuned specifically for those models.

Can I use my Anthropic API key or ChatGPT subscription in Dexto?

Yes. In Model settings you can add your own Anthropic API key, and Dexto uses it for Claude models instead of Dexto credits. You can also add an OpenAI API key, sign in with a ChatGPT login to use your ChatGPT subscription, or add a Cursor API key. The models documentation lists the supported options.

So the accounts you already pay for keep working. Your Anthropic key powers Claude agents that run on a cloud computer, on a schedule, with your connections and skills, and you can still switch a task to another provider's model when it fits better.

Can Claude run agents in the cloud?

Partly. Claude Code has cloud sessions that run on Anthropic-managed infrastructure and keep going after you close your laptop, and routines that start those sessions on a schedule, from an API call, or from a GitHub event. Both are in research preview on paid plans, according to Anthropic's cloud session and routines documentation.

These features are built around code. A routine is a prompt plus GitHub repositories and connectors; each run clones the repository into a fresh session, and pull requests require GitHub. Scheduled routines run at most once an hour and have a daily run cap. The session's VM is reclaimed after a period of inactivity. If your recurring work is “review every new pull request”, this is a strong option and you may not need anything else.

Outside Claude Code, the Claude chat apps answer when you message them. A regular chat does not wake itself up on Friday morning.

What are serverless agents, and how does Dexto run them?

A serverless agent is an agent that runs in the cloud without you keeping a laptop or browser tab open and without you renting, configuring, or patching a server. You describe the work; the platform supplies the computer, the schedule, and the storage.

In Dexto, every workspace has its own persistent cloud computer that the agent uses to store files, run code, open browsers, and run apps. A Loop tells an agent to do a task without waiting for you: you can start it yourself, run it once at a chosen time, or put it on a schedule, then check what happened after each run. Actions that change data or publish externally can pause for your approval.

Take the Friday release update from the start of this post. In Dexto you would:

1. Connect GitHub and Linear under Connections.
2. Install or write a release-update skill that describes your format and what counts as user-facing.
3. Create a Loop that runs every Friday at 9am, drafts the update, saves it as an artifact, and posts a link in Slack.

The loop runs whether or not your laptop is open. Last week's draft, the scripts the agent wrote, and the preferences it has remembered are still there the next week. None of this depends on a Git repository, so the same pattern works for a competitor brief, an inbox digest, or a spreadsheet refresh.

The part doing the work here is not the model. It is the harness around it: persistence, context, tools, scheduling, and approvals.

Can I use Dexto with Claude?

Yes. Dexto exposes a remote MCP server at https://app.dexto.ai/mcp. Add it to Claude as a custom connector and Claude can search your Dexto workspace, run commands and manage files on the Dexto cloud computer, delegate work to Dexto agents, and create automations, all from a Claude conversation.

This is often the best setup: keep Claude as the place you think and talk, and use Dexto as the cloud that does the long-running and recurring work.

Add Dexto to claude.ai or Claude Desktop

1. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors, or go straight to the add custom connector dialog.
2. Click +, choose Add custom connector, name it Dexto, and paste the URL:

https://app.dexto.ai/mcp

3. Click Add, then Connect, and sign in to Dexto. Authentication is OAuth, so there is no API key to copy.
4. Enable Dexto from Search and tools in the chat composer.

Anthropic's custom connector guide says custom connectors work on Free, Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Free limited to one custom connector. On Team and Enterprise, an owner adds the connector in organization settings first. Dexto's MCP setup guide has the same steps for ChatGPT, Codex, and Cursor.

Add Dexto to Claude Code

If you sign in to Claude Code with your claude.ai account, connectors you added above appear in Claude Code automatically; run /mcp to confirm. Otherwise, add the server with Claude Code's standard command for remote HTTP servers, then run /mcp inside a session to complete the OAuth sign-in:

claude mcp add --transport http dexto https://app.dexto.ai/mcp

Prompts to try from inside Claude

For an unfamiliar task, ask Claude to search Dexto first. Dexto returns a short ranked list of routes available to your account instead of loading its whole catalog into the conversation.

• “Search Dexto for the best way to connect my GitHub work.”
• “Find or create a weekly project status automation in Dexto.”
• “Find a Dexto agent that can own a competitor research brief, and start it.”

Two things to know. A search result is a route, not a grant: Dexto rechecks access, approvals, and billing when Claude takes the next action. And the Dexto MCP server is a workspace interface, not a credential proxy. It does not expose the secrets behind your connections. For other servers worth adding next to it, see our best MCP servers guide.

Is Dexto a Claude alternative?

For chat and coding in your own repository, no, and it does not try to be. For running agents in the cloud on any model, yes. Most people who compare the two end up using both.

Pick Claude if most of your work is conversation, writing, and analysis; you want Anthropic's models first-party with a flat subscription; or you write code locally and want Claude Code in your terminal and IDE. Claude's desktop and mobile apps are polished, and Claude Code is one of the strongest tools available for working inside a repository.

Pick Dexto if you want work to happen when you are not there; the work is not tied to a Git repository; you want files and apps to persist on a cloud computer between runs; you want to choose or switch models per task; or you would rather pay for usage than per seat.

Use both if you already like working in Claude and want it to be able to hand off long or recurring jobs. Add the Dexto connector, keep talking to Claude, and let the scheduled and background work run in Dexto.

Does Dexto have skills like Claude?

Yes. Both use the same idea: a skill is a folder of instructions and supporting files that the agent loads only when a task needs it. Claude supports skills on every plan, including custom uploads. Dexto's Skills Library adds a store of Dexto and community skills. Our Agent Skills vs MCP explainer covers how skills and connections fit together.

Is Dexto free? How does pricing compare to Claude?

Dexto has a free plan, then pay-as-you-go credits starting at $5 that cover models, compute, media, and connections. Claude has a free plan and per-seat subscriptions: Pro at $20 a month, Max from $100 a month, and Team and Enterprise seats, as listed on Anthropic's pricing page. A subscription is predictable if you chat all day. Credits suit bursty or scheduled work, and you can bring your own Anthropic key into Dexto if you already pay for API usage. See Dexto pricing for details.

What about ChatGPT?

The same questions come up for OpenAI's apps, with different answers on models, cloud agents, and setup. We cover those in Dexto vs ChatGPT.

Try it

Create a free workspace at app.dexto.ai, pick a Claude model or any other, and set up one loop for a task you repeat every week. Then add https://app.dexto.ai/mcp as a connector in Claude and ask it to check on the result.