OpenHands costs nothing to self-host, and its open-source repository shows about 92,000 GitHub stars. It is an AI coding agent that writes and edits code, runs terminal commands and works through software tasks with little hand-holding. The project began in March 2024 as OpenDevin, an open alternative to Devin, and the company behind it now goes by the OpenHands name after starting as All Hands AI.
The current front end is Agent Canvas, a workspace where developers run and supervise one or several agents at once.
How It Works
A developer installs Agent Canvas on macOS, Linux or Windows, connects an agent and gives it a task. The default OpenHands Agent works with whatever language model you pick, through your own API key, a local model or OpenHands’ own model service. Agent Canvas can also drive outside agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI using an existing subscription.
Each agent can run in its own git worktree, so several tasks proceed in parallel without colliding. The backend can be your laptop, Docker, a remote VM, Modal or OpenHands Cloud, and you can switch between them. Automations run on a schedule or fire on events, and can be started from Slack or GitHub. Agents follow repository guidance in an AGENTS.md file and can use MCP servers and skills. A Python SDK lets teams build their own agent applications on the same engine.
Pricing
Agent Canvas is free and MIT-licensed, with community support. The Teams plan costs $500 a month for up to 10 users, plus $50 per additional seat, and adds role-based access, SSO, budgeting controls and up to 5,000 sessions a month. It comes with a 30-day trial. Enterprise pricing is custom, with unlimited users, uncapped usage and SLA-backed support. In every case, model usage is billed separately by your LLM provider.
What to Watch Out For
OpenHands is built for developers. Setting it up, choosing models and reviewing agent changes takes engineering time, and the agent’s code still needs human review before it ships. Model costs sit outside the subscription, so long agent sessions on premium models can cost more than the plan itself. The product has been reshaped several times, and the older Docker-based local GUI is now marked legacy, so some tutorials online are out of date. The pricing page lists no compliance certification and points to a trust center instead.
Recent News
On August 21, 2026 it shipped Agent Canvas 1.15, adding a setup checklist, easier automation discovery and a conversation overview with grouped Git commits.
User Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to rate OpenHands.