Amp vs Codeburn (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?

Both are popular terminal coding agents. Here is how Amp and Codeburn 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

Visit Amp ↗

Codeburn

Free local dashboard that tracks AI coding token spend across 40+ tools

6.5 /10

Pricing: Open source

Pros

100% local — reads existing session files with no account, API keys, or uploads; optional desktop telemetry defaults off in the EU/EEA/UK
Covers roughly 40 tools/agents with genuinely useful features (waste detection with auto-fix, budget guards, spend-vs-commits correlation)
Free and open source (MIT) with an active community (11k+ GitHub stars, reportedly 150k+ users)

Cons

It's an observability/cost tool, not a coding agent — it doesn't write or edit code itself
Cost estimates rely on a 24-hour-cached pricing feed (LiteLLM), so very new or custom models can lag briefly

Visit Codeburn ↗

Amp vs Codeburn at a glance

	Amp	Codeburn
Editor score	8.2 / 10	6.5 / 10
Pricing model	Freemium	Open source
Starting price	$20/mo	Free
Reader upvotes	0	1
Best for	terminal, agent	cost-tracking, cli, analytics
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 6.5. Amp is the better fit if you value: strong results on hard, multi-step tasks, shared threads for team review. Choose Codeburn instead if you need: 100% local — reads existing session files with no account, api keys, or uploads; optional desktop telemetry defaults off in the eu/eea/uk, covers roughly 40 tools/agents with genuinely useful features (waste detection with auto-fix, budget guards, spend-vs-commits correlation).