Sourcegraph Cody vs OpenHands
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Sourcegraph Cody and OpenHands.
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Verdict: OpenHands wins
OpenHands scores 4.2/5, edging out Sourcegraph Cody at 3.5/5. Engineering teams that want autonomous coding agents they can host, govern, and swap models or agent implementations behind — without committing to a closed vendor.
Sourcegraph Cody AI coding assistant with entire codebase context | OpenHands Open-source AI software development agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 3.5 (1 review) | 4.2 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | free |
| Starting Price | Free tier available | Free |
| Best For | Large engineering organizations already running Sourcegraph Enterprise that want an AI assistant grounded in their full multi-repo codebase and can commit to an enterprise contract. | Engineering teams that want autonomous coding agents they can host, govern, and swap models or agent implementations behind — without committing to a closed vendor. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | free tierteam featuresbyok | free tieropen sourcebyok |
| Visit Sourcegraph Cody → | Visit OpenHands → |
Sourcegraph Cody
Pros
- + Cross-repository context via Sourcegraph's search index — in my testing its citations landed on the real symbols across two repos, where file-scoped assistants hallucinate call sites
- + Context filters actually work: I excluded a repository and confirmed questions stopped drawing from it, a verifiable admin control
- + Runs in VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio (experimental), web and CLI, so it fits mixed-IDE teams
- + Enterprise deployment options including single-tenant, with a stated no-model-training policy in Sourcegraph's AI terms
Cons
- - No self-serve access of any kind since 23 July 2025 — no free tier, no trial, and a $16,000 minimum annual contract on the only plan Sourcegraph publishes
- - Per-seat pricing is unpublished; the widely quoted $59/user/month could not be verified on Sourcegraph's own pages
- - Autocomplete latency in a large monorepo was slow enough to interrupt my flow in testing, varying with indexed context size
- - The context advantage depends on your repositories being indexed on the Sourcegraph instance — without that setup it behaves like cheaper assistants
OpenHands
Pros
- + MIT-licensed core with ~90,700 GitHub stars and 300+ contributors is the most credible open platform in the category
- + Agent Canvas runs OpenHands and third-party agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, any ACP agent) behind one control center — I switched backends without changing workflows
- + Sandboxed Docker execution with documented security hardening kept the agent's blast radius bounded in my local setup
- + Automations (scheduled and webhook-triggered, publishing to Slack/GitHub/Linear) worked as one configuration surface rather than bespoke CI jobs
- + Bring-your-own-LLM design keeps the platform provider-neutral on models and pricing
Cons
- - Self-hosting the free tier means your team owns hardening, upgrades, and incident response with community support only
- - Teams at $499/month for up to 10 users is capped at 5,000 sessions per month — heavy automation shops must price that out
- - Token costs for your chosen model are on top of any subscription and vary widely by task
- - The platform spans four repositories; contributors must learn the boundaries before touching anything
- - Agent Canvas is still labeled beta in the repository badges even as the surrounding platform matures
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Sourcegraph Cody or OpenHands?▼
OpenHands scores higher at 4.2/5 vs 3.5/5 for Sourcegraph Cody, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Sourcegraph Cody and OpenHands?▼
Sourcegraph Cody: Cody is Sourcegraph's AI coding assistant, answering questions and writing code with context from an entire codebase. OpenHands: OpenHands is an open-source AI software-development agent that reads a repository, writes and runs code and iterates on a task the way a developer would.
Is Sourcegraph Cody or OpenHands more affordable?▼
Sourcegraph Cody starts at €0/mo, OpenHands starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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