Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Amp vs OpenMausBot

OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) 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 agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 875 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 74
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 59

Watch for

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

OpenMausBot B

Best for A person or an outside agent who wants several CLI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Grok, ACP CLIs) organised as named bots with their own computers, routines and approvals, driven by MCP or a CLI.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 60 against 31
  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 72
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 69
  • Payments & pricing, 50 against 35

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

New bots start at Full access, which approves provider permission requests without a card

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmpOpenMausBotEdge
Reliability16%203160OpenMausBot +29
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27290OpenMausBot +18
Agent ergonomics13%16.26977OpenMausBot +8
Security & auth14%17.55759OpenMausBot +2
Payments & pricing10%12.53550OpenMausBot +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87974Amp +5
Transparency & trust7%8.87759Amp +18
Negative events≤150-2
TotalC 57.1/100B 65.4/100

Facts side by side

FactAmpOpenMausBot
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAmp Frontier CorporationSupamaus Software Private Limited
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transportsstdio
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 privateApache-2.0
Tools exposednone20
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-082026-10-30
Terms last updatedno date given2026-10-10
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-102026-10-18
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 waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity41k npm/wk8.2k stars, 3.5k 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.

OpenMausBot

A bounded 20-tool MCP server with typed schemas, annotations and idempotent sends, and a headless CLI with JSON output and exit codes, let another agent hand work to a bot team and wait on it. New bots start at Full access, so provider permission requests pass without a card, and usage analytics stay on until switched off.

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

OpenMausBot

  1. Ask the owner for a pairing code from Settings > Phone, exchange it at POST /api/auth/pair, and set OPENMAUSBOT_TOKEN with an explicit OMB_PORT
  2. Pass a send_id with every send_bot_message and send_channel_message, so a retry returns the first receipt
  3. Use wait_for_conversation instead of polling, and on needs-user stop and tell the owner a card is waiting
  4. Check a bot's access level with the owner before sending work. New bots run at Full access unless defaults were changed
  5. Ask the owner to switch off Settings > General > Usage analytics if nothing beyond model calls should leave the machine

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Amp or OpenMausBot?

OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) 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 OpenMausBot open source?

No open-source release is listed for Amp. OpenMausBot is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Amp or OpenMausBot

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

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