OpenHands

OpenHands (formerly OpenDevin) is an open source AI software agent specifically designed for software engineering tasks. It differs from code completion tools like GitHub Copilot by operating as an autonomous agent that can plan, execute multi-step tasks, use tools, browse the web for documentation, and iterate based on results — more like Devin AI but open source and requiring only your own API keys.

The agent operates in a sandboxed environment with access to a shell, code editor, file system, and web browser. From a natural language task description, OpenHands plans an approach, writes code, executes it, reviews the output, and iterates until the task is complete or requires human input. This autonomous loop handles tasks like implementing a feature, fixing a bug, writing tests, or setting up a project configuration.

Being open source, OpenHands can be run entirely on your own infrastructure with any compatible AI model, addressing the data privacy concerns that enterprise autonomous coding agents raise. Using Claude Sonnet or GPT-4 via your own API keys means code never leaves your controlled environment beyond the model API call.

The open source community has contributed integrations, improvements, and specialisations for different software engineering workflows. GitHub issues can be passed directly to OpenHands for autonomous resolution attempts.

Compared to commercial alternatives like Devin AI ($500/month), OpenHands provides comparable autonomous coding capability at the cost of API usage alone, which for typical tasks is substantially cheaper. The trade-off is self-management of the runtime environment and less polished commercial support.