OpenHands vs Devin: open-source vs managed coding agents
Updated By Agent Radar6 min read
Short answer
OpenHands vs Devin compared from their docs and pricing pages: MIT self-hosting vs managed cloud VMs, plans, model choice, integrations and who each fits.
Top pick: Devin. Cognition's autonomous software engineer. Sessions run in their own VMs in the cloud or on your machine, with a web app, Devin Desktop, a CLI and @Devin in Slack or Teams.
OpenHands and Devin both take a ticket and come back with a pull request, but they are different kinds of product. OpenHands is MIT-licensed software you host and point at any model. Devin is Cognition's managed agent that runs every session in its own VM. Checked on 2026-10-31 against OpenHands 1.34.0 (October 27) and Devin's live docs and pricing page.
Quick comparison
| OpenHands | Devin | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenHands (github.com/OpenHands) | Cognition |
| Source | MIT, ~92k GitHub stars | Closed |
| Where agents run | Your laptop, Docker, VMs or servers; OpenHands Cloud optional | Cognition's cloud VMs, or your machine via Desktop and CLI |
| Models | Bring your own key, any LLM | Frontier and open models chosen per plan; Cognition's SWE-2 |
| Other agents | Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Pi, OpenCode over ACP | Devin only |
| Entry price | Free (self-hosted) | Free plan with light quota; Pro $20/month |
| Team price | $500/month for up to 10 users, +$50 per seat | $80/month plus $40 per full dev seat |
| Integrations | Automations for Slack, GitHub, Linear, Notion and more | Slack, Teams, Linear, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket |
| Self-hosting | Every plan is self-hosted | Enterprise VPC deployment only |
Ranks in the item list are alphabetical, not a verdict.
Verdict
Pick Devin if you want to delegate tickets without running any infrastructure: you tag @Devin in Slack or assign a Linear issue, and it builds and tests in its own VM, browser included. Pick OpenHands if your code or model choice cannot leave your control, or if you want one console for several agents, including Claude Code and Codex, on hardware you already have. Small teams on a budget also land on OpenHands, as long as someone is willing to operate it.
How each one runs
OpenHands now ships as Agent Canvas, "the self-hosted developer control center for coding agents and automations." You install it with npm install -g @openhands/agent-canvas (Node.js 24 or later and uv) or run the ghcr.io/openhands/agent-canvas Docker image. The README warns that the plain npm install runs the agent server directly on your machine with full filesystem access; the Docker options isolate it, and 1.34.0 added a per-conversation Docker runtime. You can attach several backends, for example a shared team server for code review plus agents on your laptop, and switch between them.
Devin runs in the cloud or on your machine. Its site says it spins up Windows, Mac and Linux VMs as needed to build, test in its own browser and record itself clicking through the result, and that a big task can be split across parallel cloud agents. The docs describe a web app with an embedded shell, IDE and browser you can take over, Devin for Terminal (curl -fsSL https://cli.devin.ai/install.sh | bash) with /handoff to send longer work to the cloud, and the Devin API.
Plans and what you pay for
Devin. Free gives a light quota and limited models. Pro is $20 per month with full model access, Devin Cloud and extra usage at API pricing; Max is $200 per month with higher quotas. Teams is $80 per month plus $40 per full dev seat, for up to 200 users. Each plan's allowance refreshes daily and weekly, and the cost per message depends on model and task size. The concurrent session limit is up to 10 on Pro and Max and unlimited on Teams and Enterprise.
OpenHands. Agent Canvas is free and open source. Teams is $500 per month for up to 10 users, $50 per extra seat, with a 30-day trial, RBAC, SSO and budgeting controls, and is capped at 5,000 sessions per month. Enterprise is custom and uncapped. All three tiers are self-hosted and bring-your-own-LLM, so your model bill comes on top.
Automation and integrations
Both aim at work that starts outside the editor. Devin lists automations for failed CI, alerts and new issues, @Devin in Slack and Teams, and ticket pickup from Linear and Jira. OpenHands automations run on a schedule or on webhook events and connect to Slack, GitHub, Linear, Notion and similar services; its README gives examples such as reports posted to Slack and GitHub issues split into tasks.
Who should not use either
If you want an agent in your editor while you type, not one you hand tickets to, look at Cline or a terminal agent such as Claude Code. If you only need a terminal agent on any model, OpenCode is lighter than running Agent Canvas.
How we compared
We read the OpenHands README, GitHub metadata and 1.34.0 release notes, the OpenHands pricing page, the Devin docs introduction, the devin.ai home page and the Devin pricing page on 2026-10-31. Stars are rounded GitHub API counts. We did not benchmark the two agents on the same tasks, so nothing here ranks their code quality.
Limitations
Prices are in US dollars as listed on 2026-10-31 and change often. Devin does not publish quota sizes per plan, and OpenHands costs depend on your own model and hosting bills, so a like-for-like cost comparison needs your workload.
Related: OpenHands hub, Devin hub, coding agents category, Devin vs Claude Code, Devin vs Cline and OpenHands vs Aider.
The tools
- Rank 1
Devin
Cognition's autonomous software engineer. Sessions run in their own VMs in the cloud or on your machine, with a web app, Devin Desktop, a CLI and @Devin in Slack or Teams.
Pros
- Managed: every session gets its own VM with shell, IDE and browser
- Individual plans from $0, Pro at $20 per month
- Built-in Slack, Teams, Linear, Jira, GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket integrations
Cons
- Closed source; self-hosting means an Enterprise VPC deployment
- Usage is a quota that refreshes daily and weekly, not a published task count
MIT-licensed Agent Canvas, a self-hosted control center that runs the OpenHands agent or third-party agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, locally, in Docker or on servers.
Pros
- MIT license and free to self-host
- Bring your own LLM key, any model
- Can run other agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode) over ACP
Cons
- You run and secure the machines; without a sandbox the agent has full filesystem access
- Team features start at $500 per month for up to 10 users
Questions
What is the main difference between OpenHands and Devin?
Ownership. OpenHands is MIT-licensed software you run on your own laptop, Docker host or servers, with any model. Devin is a managed product from Cognition: each session runs in its own VM, Cognition picks and mixes the models, and you pay a plan with a usage quota.
Is OpenHands an open-source Devin alternative?
Yes, that is the closest fit. OpenHands is MIT-licensed and free to self-host, it runs coding agents against your repositories, and it has automations for Slack, GitHub and Linear. What it does not give you is Devin's managed VMs; you supply the compute and sandboxing.
Which is cheaper, OpenHands or Devin?
For one person, OpenHands Agent Canvas is free and you pay only your LLM provider; Devin Pro is $20 per month with a quota and extra usage at API pricing. For teams, Devin Teams is $80 per month plus $40 per full dev seat; OpenHands Teams is $500 per month for up to 10 users plus $50 per extra seat, still self-hosted and still paying your own model bills.
Can OpenHands run Claude Code or Codex?
Yes. The OpenHands README says Agent Canvas runs the OpenHands agent by default and can use Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Pi, OpenCode or any agent that speaks the Agent Client Protocol (ACP).
Can I self-host Devin?
Not as a free download. Devin's pricing page lists a dedicated deployment option and deployment in your own virtual private cloud for Enterprise customers only.