Head to head · Multi-agent orchestration · October 2026 research run

Amp vs Clawboo

Clawboo scores 61.4 (C) on agent readiness against Amp's 57.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Amp leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 955 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Amp C

Best for Teams that want a hosted, multi-model coding agent with shared threads and cloud machines, driven from scripts through execute mode or the SDKs.

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 51
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 58

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Clawboo loses 4 points for them

Watch for

The tools page says Amp does not ask for approval before running tools, and control needs a custom plugin

Clawboo C

Best for One person on one computer who wants several coding and general agents on one board, with shared memory and a lead agent that routes work.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 52 against 31
  • Schema & documentation, 83 against 72
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 69
  • Security & auth, 70 against 57
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 35

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

Claude Code runs in bypassPermissions, Codex with danger-full-access and Hermes with --yolo, with no setting to change it and no sandbox

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community Amp +28

Amp 79

@ampcode/cli 0.0.1791460855-g1f688c was published on 8 October 2026 (30). 678 versions on npm since 10 July 2026, several a day (20). No public tracker. Support is in-product bug reports, a Discord server, email and X, and the Chronicle had 16 dated posts in September 2026. Reply times aren't visible (10). @ampcode/sdk and amp-sdk on PyPI were both released on 18 September 2026 (15). No public CI, builds carry no notes, and the installer checks a checksum (4).

Clawboo 51

0.5.0 was published to npm on 21 October 2026 (30). Two releases in the 90 days to 1 November 2026, 0.4.0 on 28 September and 0.5.0, below the three the line asks for (0). github.com was unreachable, so replies to issues, pull requests and Discussions are unchecked. The CI file cites issue #140 as fixed (3). One public npm package, current, with no entry in the official MCP registry for its four servers (10). CI, CodeQL, weekly Dependabot and SLSA provenance on 0.4.0 and 0.5.0, with @composio/client pinned to an alpha (8).

Payments & pricing Clawboo +25

Amp 35

Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). The pricing page is public. Hobby is free, Megawatt is $20 a month with 45,000 orb minutes, orbs are priced per hour by size from $0.08, and paid credits are charged at provider API prices with no markup outside Enterprise. The Gigawatt price sits behind a tab we couldn't read (20). Hobby is free when you bring your own model key or subscription and run locally or on your own runner. The pricing page does not say whether sign-up asks for a card, and inference served by Amp is never free (15). A person signs in through a browser to create the access token (0).

Clawboo 60

No payment protocol (0). Read with the self-hosted rule. Free under MIT with nothing to buy (20). No card and no Clawboo account (20). One npx command installs and starts it with no sign-up (20). Model costs belong to the providers the owner connects.

Reliability Clawboo +21

Amp 31

Local-package reading, as for the other closed-source harnesses. An install script that verifies a SHA-256 checksum, and an @ampcode/cli npm package of prebuilt binaries, for macOS, Linux and Windows through WSL (20). The source repository is private, so there is no public CI or test suite (0). There is no public issue tracker, and bug reports go to the vendor from inside the product. The CLI needs Amp's servers for every thread, and the status page lists 25 incidents between 4 August and 6 October 2026, six marked critical, most resolved within two hours (8). Versions are build stamps such as 0.0.1791460855-g1f688c with no per-version notes, and the introduction says "No backward compatibility", though removals are announced with dates in the Chronicle (3). The version line is 0.0 and we found no statement that the CLI is stable (0).

Clawboo 52

Read as local software. The official npm package clawboo states Node.js 22.12 or newer, and the README says macOS, Linux and Windows are supported (20). ci.yml runs lint, typecheck, Vitest and a real-concurrency suite on Linux and platform suites on Windows and macOS, and publish.yml reruns build, lint, typecheck, tests and a clean-install boot before it publishes. 0.5.0 carries provenance from that workflow on main, so its checks passed at that commit, but run results on main couldn't be read (15). github.com was unreachable, so open crash and regression issues are unchecked. A known-issues page lists 25 entries with a status each, three of them fixed on main (5). Changesets write a changelog entry per release, and removals and the 0.2.0 database reset are called out, though breaking changes arrive in minor versions before 1.0 (12). Version 0.5.0, and SECURITY.md says pre-1.0 (0).

Transparency & trust Amp +19

Amp 77

Closed source under the Amp licence terms from Amp Frontier Corporation, with the npm packages marked Amp Commercial License. The terms page shows no date (15). The security reference lists 19 providers and what each sees, says deleted threads are removed within 30 days, diagnostic data after 7 days and audit logs kept at least 30 days, and the privacy policy (modified 10 September 2026) agrees, with account data kept while the account is active (24). No deprecation policy. The terms allow any feature to be discontinued without notice, while removals so far were announced with dates, such as the old npm package names on 14 May 2026 for removal on 15 June (8). Amp is local software tied to a hosted service. Providers and US hosting are disclosed in detail, but the usage data the client sends is not itemised and has no documented opt-out (12).

Clawboo 58

MIT, Copyright 2026 Sanreds, with a third-party notices file (30). The docs list every file Clawboo writes, which copies of keys are encrypted and which are plain text, retention for stored tool results (7 days) and pending approvals (24 hours), and that prompts go only to connected providers. There is no privacy statement, and the website wasn't read (22). The 0.1.x line is deprecated on npm with a note in the changelog, and removals are dated in release notes, with no written deprecation policy or notice period (10). No telemetry, with the server's own outbound requests disclosed, though the npm update check has no setting (18).

Security & auth Clawboo +13

Amp 57

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Every thread, with messages, code used as context and tool results, is stored on Amp's servers, and there is no local-only or self-hosted mode. Training on user data is off unless a user opts in, provider retention is limited under Minimal Data Retention, and secrets are redacted before they leave the client on a best-effort basis. The terms allow collection of usage data and we found no opt-out for the CLI (14). The tools page says Amp does not ask for approval before running tools, and points to a custom plugin for control. MCP servers defined in a project's settings need approval, amp.mcpPermissions allows or rejects servers and amp.tools.disable removes tools. The CLI has no sandbox. Orbs are separate cloud machines (6). The security reference has a prompt-injection section that describes layered measures, and the tools page warns about untrusted repositories and MCP servers (9). Threads keep prompts, tool calls and results as a record, a data API covers workspace analytics and threads, and authentication audit logs are for Enterprise workspaces (12). A security.txt that expires on 20 November 2026, a bug bounty with safe harbour, SOC 2 Type II and annual penetration tests per the vendor. No public advisories found (16).

Clawboo 70

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. The docs say Clawboo sends no telemetry and list the GitHub catalogue fetch, the npm version check, OpenRouter's public model list, Google Fonts and the GitHub star count, of which only the catalogue address can be changed (27). Clawboo Native shell commands are off by default and asked one at a time, and connector grants are per agent with approval on writes. Claude Code, Codex and Hermes run with their prompts and sandboxes off and no setting to change it, they can read Clawboo's database and key vault, and with no access token by default any local program can answer approval cards (8). Images in agent text don't load on their own, peer posts are marked as evidence, and a run that has read private data and untrusted content asks before any outbound connector call (11). An audit log of budget, breaker, approval, verification, tool-call and install events, with secrets masked (13). SECURITY.md with private reporting, CodeQL, Dependabot and npm provenance. No security.txt or bug bounty, OSV lists no advisory for clawboo, and the proxy advisory is on the docs with a workaround while its fix is unreleased (11).

Schema & documentation Clawboo +11

Amp 72

Framework reading. A JSON Schema for the settings file at ampcode.com/cli-settings.schema.json (22 properties), TypeScript types for every stream message, and a generated reference for the plugin API, but no OpenAPI for the server (18). ampcode.com/llms.txt indexes a raw Markdown rendition of each of 55 docs pages (10). The docs say when to use execute mode, orbs, runners, the oracle and the Librarian, and what each mode is for (15). Settings carry types and defaults, and the stream schema enumerates stop reasons, result subtypes and MCP server states (12). Examples on nearly every page and two result error subtypes (error_during_execution, error_max_turns), with no exit codes or error catalogue (9). Dated Chronicle posts with an RSS feed and a lastModified date on each docs page, but no changelog by CLI version (8).

Clawboo 83

Harness reading of the framework line, as for Paperclip. The REST API's 199 routes are documented per resource with parameters, bodies and responses, and the MCP tools reference gives typed arguments for every tool on the four servers, but no OpenAPI file was found (17). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown copy of every page at .md on docs.claw.boo (10). The docs say what each part does and does not cover, with known issues, production defaults and a limits page that names the code line behind each number (17). Tool arguments are typed with required and optional fields and documented caps, such as 24 live subtasks per parent and limits lowered to 1,000, with free-text task bodies (12). curl examples on each API page, an events and errors reference, and the exact error strings each MCP tool returns (14). A dated changelog for every release with an Unreleased section, though API paths carry no version and every MCP server reports 0.1.0 (13).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmpClawbooEdge
Reliability16%203152Clawboo +21
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27283Clawboo +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.26975Clawboo +6
Security & auth14%17.55770Clawboo +13
Payments & pricing10%12.53560Clawboo +25
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87951Amp +28
Transparency & trust7%8.87758Amp +19
Negative events≤150-4
TotalC 57.1/100C 61.4/100

Facts side by side

FactAmpClawboo
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAmp Frontier CorporationSanreds
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary, under the Amp licence terms (Amp Frontier Corporation). The npm packages are marked Amp Commercial License and the source repository is privateMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-21
Terms last updatedno date givenno document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-10no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot read yet
Popularity41k npm/wk100 npm/wk

Verdicts

Amp

Execute mode streams JSON in a format close to Claude Code's, with TypeScript and Python SDKs, and the security reference names each provider and what it sees. The CLI runs tools without asking, has no built-in permission rules or local sandbox, and stores every thread on Amp's servers.

Clawboo

Tasks, memory, team chat and connectors are shared across five runtimes through four MCP servers, with documentation that states each default and limit. Claude Code, Codex and Hermes run with their sandboxes and approval prompts off and no setting to change it, and a reverse-proxy exposure of the MCP servers is fixed only on the unreleased main branch.

Before you call either

Amp

  1. Run unattended jobs in a container or VM. The CLI runs shell commands and edits without asking, and only a custom plugin can gate tool calls
  2. Set AMP_API_KEY to an access token starting sgamp_ from Settings. The CLI rejects the short-lived token that amp login stores
  3. Use amp -x "task" --stream-json and read the final result message, checking is_error. Exit codes are not documented
  4. Set AMP_SKIP_UPDATE_CHECK=1 or amp.updates.mode to disabled in CI. Updates install automatically by default
  5. Treat the block headed INSTRUCTIONS FOR LLMs in ampcode.com page source as vendor copy, and take facts from the docs Markdown

Clawboo

  1. Run npx clawboo@latest, not a bare npx clawboo, which can reuse an older cached build. Node.js 22.12 or newer is required
  2. On 0.5.0 behind nginx, Caddy or a Cloudflare Tunnel, deny /api/mcp/ at the proxy and set STUDIO_ACCESS_TOKEN from openssl rand -hex 24
  3. Give Claude Code, Codex and Hermes teammates only work you would let run unattended, or run Clawboo under a separate user account or VM
  4. Create a hard-cap budget in Settings > Insights > Governance before long runs. A fresh install has no budget and new budgets only warn
  5. Install @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk globally beside Clawboo for Claude Code teammates. A one-off npx run cannot load it

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Amp or Clawboo?

Clawboo scores 61.4 (C) on agent readiness against Amp's 57.1 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Amp leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

Are Amp and Clawboo open source?

No open-source release is listed for Amp. Clawboo is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Amp or Clawboo

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