# Letta vs OpenHands (slim)

> OpenHands scores 70.3 (BB) to Letta's 59.7 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/letta-vs-openhands.md (~6,600 tokens) · this version ~2,930 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/letta-vs-openhands.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/letta-vs-openhands
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

OpenHands scores 70.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Letta's 59.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.

- Letta: C 59.7, rank #684 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/letta.min.md
- OpenHands: BB 70.3, rank #206 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openhands.min.md
- Letta, good for Long-lived coding agents and assistants that keep memory and identity across sessions and machines. Also Runs on your own machine; No incidents deducted, where OpenHands loses 7 points for them.
- OpenHands, good for Teams that want to self-host a coding agent with a web UI, per-conversation Docker sandboxes and scheduled or webhook automations, or embed the agent through a Python SDK and REST API. Ahead on Reliability, 90 against 58; Schema & documentation, 90 against 70; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 67; Security & auth, 64 against 35; Transparency & trust, 67 against 55. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | Letta | OpenHands |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 58 | 90 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 70 | 90 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 78 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 35 | 64 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 85 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 55 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Letta | OpenHands |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Letta | All Hands AI |
| Transports | stdio |  |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2025-09-03 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| 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 | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Popularity | 3.8k stars, 86k npm/wk, 2.2k PyPI/wk | 90k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, OpenHands +32: Letta 58 (Local-software lines, read for the harness. `@letta-ai/letta-code` on npm with Node.js 22.19 or newer, and PyPI wheels for glibc Linux, macOS 14 and Windows x64 with Python 3.9 or newer stated (20). ci.yml, nightly update smoke tests and Telegram live smoke tests exist, but GitHub's API answered with a rate limit, so run results were unread (15 of 25, unchecked). 332 open issues and pull requests, mostly pull requests; recent bug reports such as recall reading the wrong conversation have no reply yet (15 of 25). 398 tags at 0.34.x with release notes on GitHub, no changelog file, and breaking removals such as AgentFile announced in the README (8 of 15). Pre-1.0 (0). Total 58.); OpenHands 90 (Read as a local package. Official npm package @openhands/agent-canvas (Node 24 or later, plus uv), a Docker image on GHCR and openhands-sdk on PyPI (Python 3.12 or later) (20). A CI workflow (ci.yml) runs on main beside desktop, Docker and end-to-end workflows; the runs passed on every load on 1 October, and GitHub's pages refused us on 1 November, so the award rests on that check (25). 456 open issues and 395 open pull requests with priority labels and a high-priority Cloud resume bug (#17664), per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (18). Dated release notes for every Canvas version and a written SDK rule of at least five minor releases before a public API or REST contract is removed, which the SDK followed on 28 October when it dropped the ACP curated model lists at their stated 1.59.0 deadline, but the Canvas CHANGELOG.md still stops at 1.0.0-alpha.2 (12). Canvas is 1.34.0 and the SDK 1.59.0, and the README's beta badge was removed on 23 October 2026 (commit 4d1c4d1, noted in the 1.33.0 release notes), so the product is no longer labelled beta. Only the Apps extension API keeps a beta label (15).)
- Security & auth, OpenHands +29: Letta 35 (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 injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Letta Cloud is the default backend, so agent state and conversations go to Letta's servers, and telemetry is on by default (10 of 30). The default permission mode is `unrestricted`; `standard`, `acceptEdits` and `strict` are opt-in, and cloud sandboxes exist for remote work (4 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found for fetched pages or channel messages (5 of 15). Conversation search and git history of memory give an operator a record of what the agent saw and changed (10 of 15). SECURITY.md routes reports to support@letta.com and scopes out the retired server; no security.txt, bounty or certification found (6 of 20). Total 35.); OpenHands 64 (Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for goose and the other agent 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. Agent Canvas still sends a `canvas_install` event to PostHog through z.openhands.dev on first use "regardless of consent" (telemetry.ts header, re-read on 1 November), and the consent banner's box is still `defaultChecked`. `AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1`, `--disable-telemetry`, `VITE_DO_NOT_TRACK=1` or the browser's Do Not Track setting stops all of it, the last since 1.26.0 (15). Confirmation policies (always, never, at or above a risk level) and a Docker sandbox per conversation exist, but Canvas still starts with `confirmation_mode: false` and the npm install runs on the host with full filesystem access. No network egress controls found. Local listeners bind to 127.0.0.1 with an injected session key, and since SDK 1.52.0 (5 October) DockerWorkspace publishes its ports on loopback (12). LLM, Invariant and GraySwan risk analysers and a policy-rail module, documented, all advisory (11). Conversation event logs, completion logs and OpenTelemetry tracing through Laminar, with hosted Laminar setup documented on 16 October (13). Security programme. openhands.dev's security.txt expired on 28 October 2026 (re-read on 1 November), though the responsible-disclosure policy it names still loads. A Vanta-hosted trust page per the 1 October check, and the git diff injection published as an OpenHands advisory with a CVE. CVE-2026-112346, the SDK's unauthenticated sandbox server, was published by VulnCheck on 26 October with no OpenHands advisory found. No bug bounty found. 13, down from 15 for the expired file, read as shopware's and tokeneconomizer's expired files are (still credited for the policy behind them, less than a valid file).)
- Schema & documentation, OpenHands +20: Letta 70 (Harness reading. docs.letta.com serves llms.txt and a Markdown version of every page, with an `applies_to` block saying which backend and interface each page covers (10). TypeScript types for the Agent SDK and a documented App Server WebSocket protocol, but no JSON Schema or OpenAPI for the harness (15 of 25). Pages say when to use local or cloud backends, subagents and channels (14 of 20). Permission modes and options are typed in the SDK (12 of 15). Example applications and a remote client reference (11 of 15). Releases most days but no changelog file (8 of 15). Total 70.); OpenHands 90 (The Agent Server REST API has an OpenAPI 3.1 spec in the docs repository (40 paths, still labelled 0.1.0), the Cloud API has another (155 paths), SDK models are Pydantic-typed and there's a TypeScript client (25). llms.txt at docs.openhands.dev (551 lines on 1 November), with no CLI, local GUI or V0 pages in it (10). The docs have a when-to-use page and examples of good and bad task instructions. On 23 October the Deprecated Projects group (local GUI, CLI, V0) was taken out of the navigation and links to it reworded towards Agent Canvas, though the pages stay reachable by URL and the SDK architecture page still links the CLI repository (15). Confirmation policies, security analysers and MCP configs are discriminated Pydantic unions with validators (13). SDK examples are checked by a CI workflow and there are troubleshooting pages, but we found no error reference for the Agent Server (12). Dated release notes for each Canvas version in the docs (1.25.0 to 1.34.0 added since 1 October), and release tags (15).)
- Transparency & trust, OpenHands +12: Letta 55 (Apache-2.0 (30). The privacy policy has no date, no legal entity and no retention periods, and says hosted message data may train future models (8 of 30). The README and docs mark AgentFile, the Electron app and the V1 server as deprecated or retired, without dated notice periods (12 of 20). Telemetry is described in the privacy policy only as basic and opt-out when supported; the LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 switch appears only in the source (5 of 20). Total 55.); OpenHands 67 (MIT across Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server (30). The privacy policy (effective 3 September 2025, re-read on 1 November) doesn't separate the open-source stack from the Cloud service, keeps data as long as reasonably necessary, allows training on content from the Services and has no subprocessor list (12). A written SDK deprecation runway of five minor releases, kept on 28 October when the ACP model lists were removed at their 1.59.0 deadline, and the CLI's unmaintained notice in its README without a date on the page (15). The consent prompt calls the data anonymous and the Docker page documents `AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY`, but no user-facing page mentions the install event sent before consent (10).)
- Agent ergonomics, OpenHands +11: Letta 67 (Harness reading. Toolsets switch with `/model`, skills load per agent, and subagents run in the background (18 of 25). Context is managed through memory blocks, reflection and dreaming (12 of 20). `letta -p --output-format json` for scripted runs and an App Server for programmatic control (12 of 20). Conversations resume by agent and conversation id, and memory is git-tracked so changes can be reverted (15 of 20). Runs with no account on the local backend, with one SDK language, TypeScript (10 of 15). Total 67.); OpenHands 78 (Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what an agent or pipeline driving it has to supply. The default agent carries three tools (terminal, file editor, task tracker), and `filter_tools_regex` trims MCP tools before they reach the model (23). Stuck detection is on by default and a condenser compacts long histories, but Canvas leaves `max_iterations` unset and we found no cost cap (15). Headless runs go through the SDK, the Agent Server REST API or the Cloud API with typed events, and the old CLI's `--headless` mode is unmaintained (14). Conversations persist and resume, and a Docker conversation keeps its workspace and history when the container is replaced (16). Python SDK and TypeScript client, but the quickstart needs Node 24 and uv, and the defaults skip both confirmation and the sandbox (10).)