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📖 The AI Tool Bible

OpenHands vs SWE-agent

A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.

OpenHands logo
OpenHands
Agents
SWE-agent logo
SWE-agent
Agents
Tagline
OpenHands
Open-source autonomous coding agent that plans, edits, and ships changes across real codebases.
SWE-agent
Open-source autonomous agent framework that lets LLMs fix GitHub issues and find security vulnerabilities by using a custom agent-computer interface.
Pricing
OpenHands
Freemium· Open Source: Free · Individual: Free · Enterprise: Custom pricing
SWE-agent
Free· Free and open-source; you pay your own LLM API costs
Free trial
OpenHands
Yes
SWE-agent
Yes
API
OpenHands
Yes
SWE-agent
Not listed
Platforms
OpenHands
apicliwebslack
SWE-agent
cli
Open source
OpenHands
Yes · MIT
SWE-agent
Yes · MIT
GitHub stars
OpenHands
89,539
checked 2026-09-29
SWE-agent
8,095
checked 2026-09-29
Last GitHub push
OpenHands
2026-09-29
SWE-agent
2026-09-28
First commit
OpenHands
2024-03
SWE-agent
2025-06
Company
OpenHands
OpenHands
SWE-agent
—
Model used
OpenHands
Multi-model (Claude, Gemini, GPT/Codex)
SWE-agent
Multi-model (GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek, local via LiteLLM)
Best for
OpenHands
Pick OpenHands if you want an open-source, model-agnostic coding agent that can be run in your own cloud and wired into GitHub, CI, and Slack.
SWE-agent
Pick SWE-agent if you're a researcher or engineer who wants a hackable, reproducible coding-agent baseline you can wire to any LLM.
Not for
OpenHands
Skip it if you just want an IDE autocomplete or a single-file chat assistant — this is aimed at repo-level, multi-step agent work.
SWE-agent
Skip it if you want a plug-and-play hosted coding assistant - reach for Cursor, Devin, or Cline instead.
Editorial score
OpenHands
8.0 / 10
SWE-agent
7.0 / 10
Use cases
OpenHands
autonomous-codingpr-reviewbug-fixinglegacy-migrationincident-triage
SWE-agent
github-issue-fixingautonomous-codingswe-benchctf-securityagent-research
Pros
OpenHands
  • Fully open source with a large, active GitHub community
  • Model-agnostic — swap Claude, Gemini, GPT/Codex per task
  • Ships enterprise features: RBAC, audit logs, cost controls
  • Real integrations with GitHub, GitLab, Slack, PagerDuty
SWE-agent
  • Open-source under MIT with a strong research pedigree (Princeton/Stanford)
  • Model-agnostic via LiteLLM - swap GPT-4o, Claude, or local models freely
  • Reproducible SWE-bench harness makes it a credible baseline for agent research
  • EnIGMA mode extends the same loop to CTF-style security tasks
Cons
OpenHands
  • Autonomous runs can rack up token spend on big repos
  • Output quality still bounded by the chosen underlying LLM
  • Self-hosting the OSS version has real ops overhead
SWE-agent
  • Officially in maintenance mode; team now recommends mini-swe-agent
  • No hosted product, GUI, or managed service - CLI and YAML only
  • LLM API costs on long-horizon tasks can be significant
  • Setup requires Docker and comfort with Python tooling
Website
OpenHands
www.all-hands.dev
SWE-agent
swe-agent.com

Editorial score: rule-based, 0–10, from AI-assisted profile inputs (see /methodology) — not a user rating; “—” means unscored. “Not listed” means we have no record of it, not that it is absent. GitHub figures and prices carry the date they were checked or captured; prices are shown as published, unconverted.

Pick OpenHands if
  • ✅ Fully open source with a large, active GitHub community
  • ✅ Model-agnostic — swap Claude, Gemini, GPT/Codex per task
  • ✅ Ships enterprise features: RBAC, audit logs, cost controls
  • ✅ Real integrations with GitHub, GitLab, Slack, PagerDuty
Pick SWE-agent if
  • ✅ Open-source under MIT with a strong research pedigree (Princeton/Stanford)
  • ✅ Model-agnostic via LiteLLM - swap GPT-4o, Claude, or local models freely
  • ✅ Reproducible SWE-bench harness makes it a credible baseline for agent research
  • ✅ EnIGMA mode extends the same loop to CTF-style security tasks
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