Amp vs HarnessRouter (2026): Which Vibe Coding App Is Better?
Both are popular terminal coding agents. Here is how Amp and HarnessRouter 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
HarnessRouter
Self-hosted unified API for running Codex, Claude Code, and other agent harnesses
7.5 /10
Pricing: Open source
Pros
- One OpenAI-Responses-compatible API in front of multiple coding-agent harnesses, so products can swap backends without rewriting integration code
- Apache-2.0, self-hosted via a single Docker command, with session isolation, streaming, file handling, and secret redaction built in
Cons
- Ships with default admin credentials (harnessrouter/harnessrouter) that must be changed immediately; Community Edition is new enough that production track recor
Amp vs HarnessRouter at a glance
| Amp | HarnessRouter | |
|---|---|---|
| Editor score | 8.2 / 10 | 7.5 / 10 |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Open source |
| Starting price | $20/mo | Free |
| Reader upvotes | 0 | 0 |
| Best for | terminal, agent | agent-api, agent-harness, self-hosted |
| 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 7.5. Amp is the better fit if you value: strong results on hard, multi-step tasks, shared threads for team review. Choose HarnessRouter instead if you need: one openai-responses-compatible api in front of multiple coding-agent harnesses, so products can swap backends without rewriting integration code, apache-2.0, self-hosted via a single docker command, with session isolation, streaming, file handling, and secret redaction built in.
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