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
| Category | Weight this run | Amp | Clawboo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 31 | 52 | Clawboo +21 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 72 | 83 | Clawboo +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 69 | 75 | Clawboo +6 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 57 | 70 | Clawboo +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 35 | 60 | Clawboo +25 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 79 | 51 | Amp +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 77 | 58 | Amp +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| Total | C 57.1/100 | C 61.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Amp | Clawboo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Amp Frontier Corporation | Sanreds |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, under the Amp licence terms (Amp Frontier Corporation). The npm packages are marked Amp Commercial License and the source repository is private | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-21 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-10 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Popularity | 41k npm/wk | 100 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
- 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
- Set
AMP_API_KEYto an access token startingsgamp_from Settings. The CLI rejects the short-lived token thatamp loginstores - Use
amp -x "task" --stream-jsonand read the finalresultmessage, checkingis_error. Exit codes are not documented - Set
AMP_SKIP_UPDATE_CHECK=1oramp.updates.modetodisabledin CI. Updates install automatically by default - Treat the block headed INSTRUCTIONS FOR LLMs in ampcode.com page source as vendor copy, and take facts from the docs Markdown
Clawboo
- Run
npx clawboo@latest, not a barenpx clawboo, which can reuse an older cached build. Node.js 22.12 or newer is required - On 0.5.0 behind nginx, Caddy or a Cloudflare Tunnel, deny
/api/mcp/at the proxy and setSTUDIO_ACCESS_TOKENfromopenssl rand -hex 24 - Give Claude Code, Codex and Hermes teammates only work you would let run unattended, or run Clawboo under a separate user account or VM
- Create a hard-cap budget in Settings > Insights > Governance before long runs. A fresh install has no budget and new budgets only warn
- Install
@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdkglobally beside Clawboo for Claude Code teammates. A one-offnpxrun 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
- Agent Zero vs Amp
- Aider vs Amp
- Amp vs Antigravity CLI
- Amp vs Auggie CLI
- Amp vs Claude Code
- Amp vs Cline
- Amp vs Crush
- Amp vs Cursor CLI
- Amp vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Amp vs dsh-superagent (DeepSeek)
- Amp vs Devin
- Amp vs Droid CLI
- Amp vs Pi
- Amp vs Gemini CLI
- Amp vs GitHub Copilot CLI
- Amp vs goose
- Amp vs Harness²
- Amp vs HarnessRouter
- Amp vs Jules
- Amp vs Junie CLI
- Amp vs Kilo Code CLI
- Amp vs Kimi Code CLI
- Amp vs Kiro CLI
- Amp vs mini-swe-agent
- Amp vs MiniMax Code
- Amp vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- Amp vs Muse Code
- Amp vs OpenAI Codex
- Amp vs OpenCode
- Amp vs OpenHands
- Amp vs OpenMausBot
- Amp vs Prime Agent
- Amp vs Qoder CLI
- Amp vs Qwen Code
- Amp vs Mirror CLI
- Amp vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Amp vs Unstoppable
- Amp vs Vibe-Trading
- Amp vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- Amp vs CLI Manager
- Amp vs Harness
- Amp vs Paperclip
- Amp vs Parallax
- Antigravity CLI vs Clawboo
- Auggie CLI vs Clawboo
- Claude Code vs Clawboo
- Clawboo vs CLI Manager
- Clawboo vs Cline
- Clawboo vs Crush
- Clawboo vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Clawboo vs dsh-superagent (DeepSeek)
- Clawboo vs Devin
- Clawboo vs Droid CLI
- Clawboo vs Gemini CLI
- Clawboo vs GitHub Copilot CLI
- Clawboo vs goose
- Clawboo vs Harness
- Clawboo vs HarnessRouter
- Clawboo vs Jules
- Clawboo vs Junie CLI
- Clawboo vs Kilo Code CLI
- Clawboo vs Kimi Code CLI
- Clawboo vs Kiro CLI
- Clawboo vs MiniMax Code
- Clawboo vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- Clawboo vs Muse Code
- Clawboo vs OpenCode
- Clawboo vs OpenHands
- Clawboo vs OpenMausBot
- Clawboo vs Paperclip
- Clawboo vs Parallax
- Clawboo vs Prime Agent
- Clawboo vs Qoder CLI
- Clawboo vs Qwen Code
- Clawboo vs Mirror CLI
- Clawboo vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Clawboo vs Unstoppable
- Clawboo vs Vibe-Trading
- Clawboo vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/amp-vs-clawboo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/amp.json·/api/v1/tools/clawboo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare amp clawboo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "amp", "b": "clawboo"}at/mcp, no key