OpenHands AI Agent Features vs Devin vs Manus: Real Pricing and Which to Pick
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Two of these are coding agents and one is not, and that single fact explains most of the confusion around them. OpenHands and Devin exist to work on software. Manus is a general agent that writes code among many other things.
At AI Holic, this guide compares openhands ai agent features vs devin vs manus on the things that decide a purchase: who runs the machine, which model does the work, what it costs when the free tier ends, and which jobs each one is honestly built for.
The Quick Verdict
| OpenHands | Devin | Manus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Made by | All Hands AI | Cognition | Butterfly Effect |
| Kind of agent | Open source coding agent | Managed AI software engineer | General purpose agent |
| Runs on | Your machine or their cloud | Their cloud only | Their cloud computer |
| Starts at | Free, self hosted | Pro at $20 a month | Free credits, then $20 a month |
| Best for | Control and privacy | Handing off tickets | Research and deliverables |
What Each One Actually Is
OpenHands: the coding agent you can own
OpenHands is an open source platform for software agents, released under the MIT license by All Hands AI. An agent works inside a sandboxed container: it reads files, runs shell commands, edits code and opens pull requests, much like a junior engineer with a terminal.
Two things set it apart. You can run it yourself with Docker on your own machines, and it is model agnostic: bring your own API key and choose the model, instead of renting someone else’s choice. A hosted cloud version exists if you want the same agent without the setup.
It connects to the tools teams already use: GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket for code, plus Slack and Jira for task intake. Developers can also drive it from a command line or build on its software agent SDK, which is where it stops being a product and starts being a platform. The OpenHands documentation lays out the pieces, from the Agent Canvas control centre to the sandbox server.
Devin: the managed AI software engineer
Devin, from Cognition, is the opposite bargain. You hand it a task, often straight from a ticket in tools like Jira or a message in Slack, and it plans, codes, tests and opens a pull request from its own cloud workstation.
There is nothing to install and nothing to maintain. The trade is control: the environment, the models and the workflow are Cognition’s, and your code is processed on their machines under their terms.
Paid plans run several sessions in parallel, so a team can hand off a queue of small tickets in the morning and review the pull requests after lunch. Devin also answers questions about a codebase through its wiki style tools, which makes it useful even when it is not writing code.
Manus: the general agent that also codes
Manus, from Butterfly Effect, works on a cloud computer of its own, with a browser, a terminal and a file system you can watch it use. People give it research projects, data work, slide decks, small websites and reports, and it returns finished deliverables.
It can write and run code as part of that work, which is why it lands in coding comparisons. But it is not built around a code repository, a test suite or a pull request flow. Judging it as a software engineer misses what it is for.
Its Wide Research mode spreads one question across many parallel agents and merges the findings, and paid plans allow scheduled and repeated tasks. That is the shape of an operations assistant, not a developer, and its pricing in credits reflects work measured in tasks rather than seats at a code editor.
How a Task Flows Through Each
Give all three the same week of work and the difference shows fast. A bug ticket lands in OpenHands as a session inside your sandbox: the agent explores the repo, runs the failing test, edits, and reruns until the test passes or it gets stuck where you can see the trace.
The same ticket in Devin starts in Slack or Jira. Devin plans in the open, works in its own cloud machine, and returns a pull request with a summary and test status. Your job is the review, which is exactly the point and also the catch we return to below.
Manus would treat the ticket as one step in a larger errand: research the error, draft the fix, write up the findings as a document. Useful, but nobody would run a sprint through it. This is the practical shape of the openhands ai agent features vs devin vs manus choice: two specialists and a generalist.
Features Compared Side by Side
| Feature | OpenHands | Devin | Manus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open source | Yes, MIT license | No | No |
| Self hosting | Yes, Docker or Kubernetes | No | No |
| Choose your own model | Yes, bring your own key | No, managed stack | No, managed mix |
| Main work | Issues, fixes, pull requests | Tickets to pull requests | Research, documents, sites |
| Browser automation | Basic, for testing | Limited | A core strength |
| Slides and reports | No | No | Yes, a core output |
| Watch it work | Full traces, open sandbox | Session replay | Live computer view |
| Team entry point | Enterprise, custom | Teams plan | Per seat plan |
Read the model row carefully, because it decides your costs and your ceiling. With OpenHands, a better model next year is a settings change. With the other two, the model is whatever the vendor ships, on the vendor’s schedule.
What Each One Costs
| OpenHands | Devin | Manus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free option | Self hosted, or hosted tier with up to 10 conversations a day | Free tier with limited quota | Free plan with 300 daily refresh credits |
| Entry paid | Enterprise only, custom price | Pro, $20 a month | $20 a month for 4,000 credits |
| Higher tier | Custom | Max, $200 a month | $40 for 8,000 credits, $200 for 40,000 |
| Teams | Custom | $80 a month plus $40 per full seat | From $20 per seat a month |
| Hidden cost | Your model tokens and your time | Usage above your plan quota | Credits burn faster on long tasks |
OpenHands looks free and mostly is, but the bill moves rather than vanishes. You pay the model provider per token, and heavy agent work uses a lot of tokens. You also pay in setup and upkeep hours, which are free only if your time is.
Devin and Manus sell predictability instead. A flat plan is easy to budget, and both meter the heavy use on top: Devin through plan quotas, Manus through credits that long research or coding runs consume quickly.
Which One Should You Choose?
Strip the marketing away and the openhands ai agent features vs devin vs manus decision is really three smaller decisions: who hosts the work, who picks the model, and whether your tasks are code shaped at all. Answer those and the tool picks itself.
Choose OpenHands if your code cannot leave your walls, if you want to pick and swap models, or if your team can run Docker without complaint. It is also the only honest answer for tinkerers, because the whole system is yours to read and change. More comparisons like this live in our AI Agents & Automation category.
Choose Devin if you want to hand off well scoped tickets and get pull requests back, with no infrastructure to run. It suits teams whose bottleneck is engineering hours, not tooling opinions.
Choose Manus if the work is wider than code: a market study by Friday, a deck, a spreadsheet cleaned and charted, a small site. Asking it to live in your repository all day is using a good tool on the wrong job.
The Honest Catches
Every agent in this comparison creates a review bottleneck. Code that arrives fast still needs a human to read it, and teams that skip that step ship the agent’s mistakes at the agent’s speed.
Benchmarks will not rescue the decision either. Coding scores are measured on public task sets with specific models, and your repository is neither. A one week trial on your own tickets tells you more than any leaderboard.
One ownership note, because it confuses buyers: a widely reported Meta deal for Manus was announced, then ordered unwound, and the later comparisons describe Manus as independent again since August 2026. Check the current terms before any annual commitment, with any of the three.
Plenty of Teams Run Two
The comparison pages argue about a winner, but real teams often pair these tools instead. A common pattern is a managed or self hosted coding agent for tickets, plus Manus style research feeding the specs those tickets are written from.
That split follows the tools’ shapes. Coding agents are judged on pull requests merged, while general agents are judged on hours of desk work removed.
If your backlog holds both kinds of pain, the openhands ai agent features vs devin vs manus question may have a two part answer, and that is fine.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OpenHands really free?
The software is free under the MIT license, and the hosted tier is free with daily limits. Your real costs are the model tokens your agents burn and the machines you run them on. For light use that can be a few dollars a month, for heavy use it is a real line item.
How much does Devin cost?
Devin has a free tier, then Pro at $20 a month and Max at $200 a month for individuals. Teams start at $80 a month plus $40 per full developer seat, and Enterprise is custom. Heavy usage above plan quotas costs more.
Can Manus write code like Devin?
Manus writes and runs code inside its own cloud computer, and it builds small websites and scripts well. What it does not do is live in your repository: no ticket to pull request flow, no test suite discipline, no codebase memory. For project work, Devin and OpenHands are the coding tools.
Is Manus still owned by Meta?
According to the later 2026 comparisons, no. A Meta acquisition was announced in late 2025, regulators ordered it unwound in April 2026, and Manus resumed independent operations in August 2026. Some older pages and summaries still say Meta owns it, which is why the confusion persists.
Which is best for a small team on a budget?
For coding, OpenHands self hosted is the cheapest real option if someone on the team can run it. If nobody can, Devin’s $20 Pro is the lowest effort start. Manus earns its $20 when the team needs research and documents as much as code.
Conclusion
Pick by job, not by hype. OpenHands for owned coding power, Devin for hands off tickets, Manus for broad knowledge work. Any of the three, reviewed by a human, beats all three running unwatched.
