ECC vs OpenHands

ECC is much bigger: 249.0k stars against 86.2k. Over the days we have tracked them ECC moved +8.1% and OpenHands +6.4%, so ECC is growing faster right now.

They split the axes: ECC leads on noise control and customization, OpenHands on setup ease.

Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.

Where they stand today

A harness-native, cross-harness agent operating system that bundles skills, session/state memory, verification loops, and AgentShield for production multi-harness workflows.

Stars
249.0k
Tracked growth
+8.1%
Maturity
Last commit
16h ago
Language
JavaScript
License
MIT
Cost to run
Free OSS; optional Pro GitHub App ($19/seat/mo) + your model/API costs

A backend-agnostic, self-hosted developer control center that lets you run and switch between local, remote, and cloud agent backends without reworking your workflows.

Stars
86.2k
Tracked growth
+6.4%
Maturity
Last commit
15h ago
Language
TypeScript
License
MIT
Cost to run
Free to self-host; optional paid OpenHands Cloud/Enterprise
0%+8%52 tracked days
affaan-m/ECCOpenHands/OpenHands

Six axes, head to head

Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.

AxisECCOpenHands
Context depth
How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository.
Whole-repo analysis
Whole-repo access
Noise control
How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only.
Severity gating
None mentioned
Customization
How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config.
Extensive configs
Configurable backends/profiles
Privacy
Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only.
Fully local
Self-hostable
Model freedom
Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one.
Bring-your-own-key
Bring-your-own model
Setup ease
What it takes to get a first useful run out of it.
Config + API key
One-command start

Which one to pick

Pick ECC if…

Production-ready — pick ECC when you need a self-hostable, operator-grade agent harness with built-in skills, memory, verification, and a GitHub App for PR audits.

  • Noise control: Severity gating (5/5 against 1/5)
  • Customization: Extensive configs (5/5 against 3/5)
Runs in pr-bot, cli, ide, coding-agent-plugin. Works with byok, openai, anthropic, gemini, local-ollama.

Pick OpenHands if…

Self-hosting — run agents locally or on your own servers and connect multiple backends while keeping data in-house and integrating with tools like GitHub and Slack.

  • Setup ease: One-command start (5/5 against 3/5)
Runs in cli, web-app, pr-bot. Works with byok, openai, anthropic, gemini.

What people want from each one

Questions people ask

Is ECC better than OpenHands?

They split the axes: ECC leads on noise control and customization, OpenHands on setup ease. ECC is worth picking when production-ready — pick ECC when you need a self-hostable, operator-grade agent harness with built-in skills, memory, verification, and a GitHub App for PR audits.

Which of ECC and OpenHands keeps my code private?

ECC: Fully local (5/5). OpenHands: Self-hostable (4/5).

What does each one cost to run?

ECC: Free OSS; optional Pro GitHub App ($19/seat/mo) + your model/API costs. OpenHands: Free to self-host; optional paid OpenHands Cloud/Enterprise.

Full profiles: affaan-m/ECC and OpenHands/OpenHands. Everything else in Multi-agent orchestration.