Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run

Amp vs Devin

Amp scores 57.1 (C) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do agent harness.

Which one, for what

Amp C

Good 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

  • Agent ergonomics, 69 against 62
  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 63
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 69

Watch for

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

Devin C

Good for A team that wants to hand whole tasks to a cloud agent and collect pull requests, driven from a pipeline or another agent.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 72
  • Security & auth, 72 against 57

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

www.devinstatus.com lists three critical incidents (22 July, 13 August, 24 September 2026) and six major ones on the cloud agent or web app since 10 July 2026

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmpDevinEdge
Reliability16%203130Amp +1
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27280Devin +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.26962Amp +7
Security & auth14%17.55772Devin +15
Payments & pricing10%12.53520Amp +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87963Amp +16
Transparency & trust7%8.87769Amp +8
Negative events≤1500
Total57.1 · C55.7 · C

Facts side by side

FactAmpDevin
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAmp Frontier CorporationCognition AI, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://mcp.devin.ai/mcp
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary, under the Amp licence terms (Amp Frontier Corporation). The npm packages are marked Amp Commercial License and the source repository is privateProprietary service under Cognition's Platform Terms of Service
Tools exposednone13
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-07
Terms last updatedno date given2026-06-30
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-102026-03-09
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity41k npm/wknone

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.

Devin

The v3 API is well specified, with a public OpenAPI 3.1 file covering 239 operations, problem+json errors, cursor pagination and service-user keys tied to roles. The status page records three critical and several major incidents on the cloud agent between 22 July and 24 September 2026, and no rate limit figures or retry guidance were found in the reviewed documentation.

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

Devin

  1. Use a cog_ service-user key with the Member role. Legacy apk_ keys fail against v3 and the MCP server with 401 or 403
  2. Set max_acu_limit on every session you create. Usage is metered by the work done and has no published unit rate
  3. Session creation is not idempotent in v3. After a timeout, list sessions by tag before creating again
  4. Enterprise keys and personal access tokens must send X-Org-Id to the MCP server. Organisation-scoped keys resolve it automatically
  5. Create scheduled work as an automation. POST to the schedules endpoint returns 403 for migrated organisations since 24 September 2026

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Amp or Devin?

Amp scores 57.1 (C) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

Other comparisons with Amp or Devin

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.