Comparison · facts verified 2026-09-07
Orbi, compared
Self-hosted delivery, honestly benchmarked. One deep dive per competitor: what it is from its own materials, where it differs from Orbi, and which job each one is right for. Every factual claim carries a source and a verification date — when the facts change, these pages get rewritten, not spun.
THE ONE-PAGE VIEW
Same destination, different ownership
Managed agents put the delivery line in a vendor cloud. Orbi runs the same issue → agent → PR loop on your machine, with GitHub as the source of truth and your model choice intact.
| Dimension | Orbi | Claude Managed Agents | Copilot coding agent | OpenAI Codex | Devin | OpenHands | Hermes Agent* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs where | Your machine | Anthropic cloud | GitHub cloud | OpenAI cloud | Cognition cloud | Local/Docker/VM/cloud | Operator machine/VPS |
| Task entry | GitHub Issue + ai-ready | API call | Issue + @copilot | ChatGPT, CLI, or GitHub | Slack or web | Web UI/CLI/webhook/API | Gateway/CLI or cron |
| State | GitHub Issues, labels, branches, PRs | Anthropic Session log | GitHub | OpenAI | Cognition | Conversations, workspaces, events | Memory, sessions, skills |
| Models | BYOK, any endpoint | Claude | GitHub’s available models | OpenAI | Cognition | BYOK, any LLM | Multiple providers |
| Isolation | Git worktree | Cloud sandbox | Cloud sandbox | Cloud sandbox | Cloud environment | Docker/VM/cloud backends | Local/container/SSH backends |
| Delivery | Reviewed PR + merge | API response | PR | PR | PR | GitHub automation; not presented as the sole queue | GitHub skill; not a documented autonomous Issue→PR queue* |
| Cost | Hardware; model can be free | Tokens + $0.08/session-hour | Copilot subscription | ChatGPT subscription/API | Subscription + credits | Self-hosted; model costs | Model/API costs |
| Open / self-hosted | Yes / Yes | No / No | No / No | No / No | No / No | MIT / Yes | Yes / Yes |
*Hermes is a general assistant; its GitHub skill is not equivalent to a GitHub-native software delivery queue. OpenHands sources: official repository and official docs. Sources: Hermes Agent official repository; Orbi documentation; Anthropic; GitHub Docs; OpenAI Codex; Devin — all verified 2026-09-07. See each linked deep dive below for scope and sources.
THE VENDOR BACKDOOR RISK
Convenience should not mean surrendering the boundary
Hosted agents can be the right choice when zero operations is the priority. They also leave five consequential decisions with a vendor: pricing, model capacity, data handling, supply, and account access.
| Risk | Observed case | Orbi’s trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Managed Agents adds $0.08/session-hour to token pricing. | Choose hardware and provider; no session-hour fee. |
| Degradation | Anthropic’s OpenClaw explanation said: “Capacity is a resource we manage thoughtfully.” | Switch provider or model in configuration. |
| Audit / data | Cloud agents execute with code, credentials, and task context in vendor infrastructure. | Keep code, keys, and run evidence local. |
| Supply / policy | On 2026-04-04 Anthropic cut OpenClaw’s subscription route, forcing API pricing or Extra Usage. | BYOK across providers avoids one supply cut. |
| Account access | Hosted service access and ToS interpretation remain vendor-controlled. | No agent-vendor account is required. |
Hosted-agent convenience is collateralized by vendor change power. Orbi leaves that five-part risk with you; the price is operating a machine, and the benefit is that nobody can unilaterally change your runtime.
Sources: Anthropic Managed Agents; Boris Cherny’s public statements; OpenClaw deep dive; comparison research epic — verified 2026-09-07. These are ownership trade-offs, not claims about service quality.
THE LANDSCAPE
Deep dives
-
Orbi vs OpenClaw
Live
The open-source always-on personal agent — and the April 2026 Anthropic subscription cutoff that repriced it overnight.
-
Orbi vs GitHub Copilot coding agent
Live
Assign an Issue to @copilot and a cloud sandbox returns a PR — the closest overlap with Orbi's task loop.
-
Orbi vs Claude Managed Agents (Anthropic)
Live
Anthropic-hosted Agent API at token rates plus $0.08/session-hour.
-
Orbi vs OpenHands
Live
Open-source AI development platform with Docker, cloud, BYOK, and broad automation surfaces.
-
Orbi vs Hermes Agent
Live
Nous Research's open-source always-on personal assistant — with GitHub tools, but not positioned as a software delivery agent.
-
Orbi vs OpenAI Codex (cloud)
Research ticket
Cloud software-engineering agent from the ChatGPT side, one sandbox per task.
-
Orbi vs Devin
Live
Cognition's managed autonomous engineer — Slack-driven tasks, cloud execution, and a billing structure that has already been rewritten once.
Every live deep dive includes its own official sources and verification date. The Codex page is the delivered research ticket #8; the comparison set is tracked in the comparison epic.
OPEN SOURCE CORE
Pick by the job
An assistant in your chats, an agent in a vendor's cloud, or a delivery line in your own repository. Orbi is the third one — self-hosted, GitHub-native, free forever.