Get an audit

Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run

Amp vs Kiro CLI

Kiro CLI scores 59.9 (C) on agent readiness against Amp's 57.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Amp leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do agent harness.

AmpAmp Frontier Corporation · Agent harness C57.1/100#482 of 722 Kiro CLIAmazon Web Services · Agent harness C59.9/100#419 of 722

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

  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 73
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 67

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Kiro CLI 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

Kiro CLI C

Good for Teams on AWS that want one agent configuration across terminal, IDE and web, with central permission policy, prompt logging to their own S3 bucket and IAM Identity Centre sign-in.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 57 against 31
  • Schema & documentation, 79 against 72
  • Security & auth, 66 against 57
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 35

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Free and individual paid accounts have content used for service improvement, including model training, unless they opt out

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmpKiro CLIEdge
Reliability16%203157Kiro CLI +26
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27279Kiro CLI +7
Agent ergonomics13%16.26967Amp +2
Security & auth14%17.55766Kiro CLI +9
Payments & pricing10%12.53540Kiro CLI +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87973Amp +6
Transparency & trust7%8.87767Amp +10
Negative events≤150-4
Total57.1 · C59.9 · C

Facts side by side

FactAmpKiro CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAmp Frontier CorporationAmazon Web Services
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or 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. Licensed as AWS Content under the AWS Customer Agreement and the AWS Intellectual Property Licence (https://kiro.dev/license/). The GitHub repository is the public issue tracker and doesn't hold the source
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-05
Terms last updatedno date given2026-08-14
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-102026-05-18
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity41k npm/wk4.4k stars

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.

Kiro CLI

Permission rules follow deny over ask over allow, cloned repositories can't add rules, and a headless session treats every ask as a deny. Content from Free and individual paid accounts is used for service improvement, including model training, unless the user opts out, and API keys for pipelines need a paid plan.

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

Kiro CLI

  1. Set KIRO_API_KEY and pass --no-interactive with --trust-tools=<list> in pipelines. Keep --trust-all-tools for disposable environments
  2. Pass --require-mcp-startup when a run depends on MCP tools. Without it a failed server is logged and the run continues
  3. Pass --no-interactive whenever input is piped from a source you don't control, and run 2.10.0 or later on Windows
  4. Run kiro-cli settings telemetry.enabled false and turn off content collection on Free and individual plans. Both are on by default
  5. Export variables in the shell before starting. Since 2.24.0 a project .env file is no longer loaded into sessions, MCP servers or tools

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Amp or Kiro CLI?

Kiro CLI scores 59.9 (C) on agent readiness against Amp's 57.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Amp leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

Other comparisons with Amp or Kiro CLI

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.

Get an auditSee a sample report