Amp vs Claurst (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?
Both are popular terminal coding agents. Here is how Amp and Claurst stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.
Amp
Frontier coding agent for the terminal and editor, from the makers of Sourcegraph
8.2 /10
Pricing: Free plan, paid from $20/mo
Pros
- Strong results on hard, multi-step tasks
- Shared threads for team review
- Subagents and AGENTS.md built in
Cons
- Usage-based costs add up on large tasks
- Fewer configuration knobs by design
Claurst
Open-source Rust terminal coding agent with ACP support for Zed, Neovim, JetBrains
7.0 /10
Pricing: Open source
Pros
- Speaks the open Agent Client Protocol, so it plugs into Zed, Neovim, and JetBrains as a native agent
- Multi-provider AI routing rather than lock-in to one vendor, plus a plugin system and chat forking
- Fully open source (GPL-3.0) with no telemetry/tracking by the maintainer's own account; actively developed (commits within the last month)
Cons
- Still officially Beta (v0.1.7); the README itself flags /share, Free Mode, /goal, and "ultracode" as experimental
- Originated as a clean-room reimplementation of Claude Code's behavior rather than an original design, so parity with the original may lag
Amp vs Claurst at a glance
| Amp | Claurst | |
|---|---|---|
| Editor score | 8.2 / 10 | 7.0 / 10 |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Open source |
| Starting price | $20/mo | Free |
| Reader upvotes | 0 | 0 |
| Best for | terminal, agent | terminal, rust, acp |
| Agent Skills support | Yes | No |
| Subagents support | Yes | No |
| MCP support | Yes | No |
| AGENTS.md support | Yes | No |
| Plugins support | Yes | No |
| Hooks support | No | No |
| Rules support | No | No |
| Agent skills in this directory | 47 | 0 |
| Subagents & agents in this directory | 9 | 3 |
| MCP servers in this directory | 72 | 0 |
Our pick
Amp edges it with a score of 8.2 versus 7.0. Amp is the better fit if you value: strong results on hard, multi-step tasks, shared threads for team review. Choose Claurst instead if you need: speaks the open agent client protocol, so it plugs into zed, neovim, and jetbrains as a native agent, multi-provider ai routing rather than lock-in to one vendor, plus a plugin system and chat forking.
Other terminal coding agents to consider
Full ranking →Claude Code Paid
Anthropic's agentic coding tool for the terminal, IDE, desktop and web
🔥 Claude Pro billed annually: $17/month instead of $20OpenAI Codex Freemium
OpenAI's coding agent for the terminal, IDE and cloud, included with ChatGPT plans
OpenCode Open source
Open-source terminal coding agent that works with any model provider
Orca Open source
An ADE for running fleets of coding agents in parallel worktrees, from desktop or mobile