# Which open source coding agent fits best? > Which open source coding agent fits your team? Aider, Cline, OpenCode and OpenHands are coding tools. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, the one that runs a company's agent work from a single repo, and it is the pick here. URL: https://openhands-alternative.com/best-open-source-coding-agent ## Five open source coding agents, side by side Kortix is the pick for work that goes past code; the four rivals are strong coding tools. Rival facts come from each project's own repository, checked October 2026. | | Kortix (recommended) | OpenHands | Aider | Cline | OpenCode | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | What it is | The open-source AI Operating System: agents, skills, memory and connectors in one repo you own | Self-hosted developer control center for coding agents and automations | AI pair programming in your terminal | Coding agent for your IDE, terminal and desktop | A terminal coding agent with build and plan modes | | Open source | Yes, read it, fork it, audit it | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Self-hosting | Kortix Cloud, your VPC, or on-prem; self-host is free | Laptop, Docker, VM, or your own infrastructure | Runs locally, in your terminal | Runs locally in your editor, terminal or desktop app | Runs locally, in your terminal or desktop app | | Model choice | Any model provider with your own keys | Use with any LLM; bring your own model | Connects to almost any LLM, including local models | Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Bedrock, and local models | Set in the client; its repo points to the OpenCode docs | | Scope of work | Any team's work: code, reports, replies, across 3,000+ apps | Coding agents and developer automations | Pair programming across one codebase | Coding in the IDE, terminal and desktop, plus scheduled agents | One coding session at a time | | Review and governance | Session work reaches main through a change request. Merge is default-deny for agents | Engineers review code; the self-hosted agent has host access | You diff and commit each change with git | Every edit and command needs approval, or auto-approve | Build agent has full access; plan agent denies edits | | Where a team outgrows it | It grows with the team: one repo for every department | When agents must work outside code, across departments | When more than one developer needs the agent | When the work leaves the codebase for other tools | When the job is bigger than one terminal session | ## A session fixes an issue and opens a change request `terminal` ```sh $ kortix sessions new --prompt "Reproduce issue #142, fix it, and open a change request" $ kortix cr ls # review what the agents propose ``` Source: https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna From the Kortix README: a session runs on its own cloud computer and branch, and a person reviews the change request it opens. ## What developers compare when they say "coding agent" A coding agent is a program that reads a codebase, edits files, runs commands and tests, and proposes a change. The five open source projects people weigh most often are Kortix, OpenHands, Aider, Cline and OpenCode. Four of them are coding tools. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and coding is one of the jobs it runs. Aider is AI pair programming in your terminal: it maps a codebase, edits it and commits changes with git. Cline is a coding agent for your IDE, terminal and desktop that shows every edit as a diff and asks for approval. OpenCode is a terminal coding agent whose build agent has full access while its plan agent denies edits by default. OpenHands is a self-hosted developer control center that runs coding agents and automations, and it can drive another agent such as OpenCode through its Agent-Client Protocol. ## A coding harness and a system that runs a company's agent work Aider, Cline, OpenCode and OpenHands are coding harnesses. Their unit of work is a coding task that ends in a diff, a commit or a review. Kortix's unit of work is a job any team can delegate. An agent is `agents/.md` plus an `agents.` block in `kortix.yaml`. The same repo holds the agent's instructions, the company memory it reads and the connector rules for what it may call, so a support reply, a weekly report and a code fix are configured the same way. OpenCode has a second role worth knowing: OpenCode is the harness. It runs every Kortix session, so a team that already uses OpenCode keeps the tool it likes and gains a place to run it in the cloud, on its own sandbox and branch, with the work landing through review. ## How to evaluate the open-source options in a week A week is enough to compare these tools if you score the same five things for each. - What the tool is for. Give it one coding task and one non-coding task, such as a short report or a support reply. A coding tool passes the first test and stalls on the second. - Self-hosting. Confirm where it runs. OpenHands documents a laptop, Docker, a virtual machine or your own infrastructure. Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network, and self-host is free. - Model choice. Confirm you can bring your own key. Aider connects to almost any LLM, including local models. Cline lists Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock and local models. Kortix takes any model provider with your own keys. - Review and governance. Ask what happens to an edit before it lands. Cline needs approval for every file edit and command unless you turn on auto-approve. OpenCode's build agent has full access, and its plan agent denies edits. In Kortix, session work reaches `main` through a change request. Merge is default-deny for agents. - Running cost. Run one real task and read the bill. The [OpenHands pricing page](/openhands-pricing) compares Kortix's free and team plans with OpenHands' paid tiers. ## The self-hosting and running-cost question Where a tool runs decides both the bill and the boundary around the agent. Aider, Cline and OpenCode run on the developer's own machine, so their compute is that machine. OpenHands can run on a laptop, in Docker, on a virtual machine or inside your own infrastructure, and its own setup guide warns that the self-hosted agent server runs directly on the host with full access to that machine's filesystem, so the host becomes the boundary. Kortix self-hosts the whole system as one Docker Compose stack on a Linux server you control. One isolated sandbox per session. Each session has its own isolated machine and branch, so the machine doing the agent's work is separate from the machine holding your files. The [self-hosting guide](/self-hosting) covers the stack, the sandbox provider key and what the first run asks for. Running cost tracks how much work you hand the agent. Kortix prices compute in credits: free is $0 with 200 credits per month and 1 project, and the team plan is $40 per seat per month with 2,500 credits per month per seat, pooled. ## Where Kortix fits Kortix is the pick when coding is one of several jobs an agent must do, and when the result has to be reviewable by someone outside engineering. The [OpenHands alternatives comparison](/openhands-alternatives) covers the wider field, and the [OpenHands vs Kortix comparison](/openhands-vs-kortix) works the coding question in detail. The Kortix team's own breakdown, [Kortix vs OpenHands: an open-source company system or a coding-agent harness?](https://kortix.com/blog/kortix-vs-openhands), lands in the same place: a coding team that wants a self-hosted control center for code can start with OpenHands, and a company that needs one system for its agents starts with Kortix. ## What buyers ask before they pick one ### Is Kortix a coding agent like Aider or Cline? Kortix runs coding agents as one of its jobs, alongside work for other teams. Its agents write and fix code on an isolated sandbox and branch, then open a change request a person reviews. Aider and Cline specialize in coding in your terminal and editor. Kortix adds a place to run agent work across a company from one repo. ### Which open source coding agent can a team self-host? All five can run outside a vendor's cloud. Aider, Cline and OpenCode run on your machine. OpenHands runs on a laptop, in Docker, on a virtual machine or your infrastructure. Kortix self-hosts the whole system as one Docker Compose stack, and self-host is free. ### Can I use OpenCode with Kortix? Yes. OpenCode is the harness. A team already using it keeps the same agent tool and gains the rest of the system: the cloud computer each session runs on, the repo that holds the agents and the company memory, and the change-request review the work lands through. ### What does an open source coding agent cost to run? Running cost follows the work you give the agent. A local tool like Aider, Cline or OpenCode spends your machine's compute and your model bill. Kortix prices compute in credits: free is $0 with 200 credits per month and 1 project, and the team plan is $40 per seat per month with 2,500 credits per month per seat, pooled. ## Run coding agents and every other agent from one repo Start with one job, then grow it across the team. [Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) ยท [Compare the OpenHands alternatives](https://openhands-alternative.com/openhands-alternatives)