Sinatra vs OpenHands
The open-source agent platform from All Hands AI. Compared here on OpenHands Cloud, the hosted tier. The same code also runs on your own machine.
This is the closest fight on the list, because OpenHands already does the two things Sinatra usually wins on: your own key works, and models are billed at cost. What is left is narrower. OpenHands is open source and you can run it yourself; Sinatra is hosted only. Sinatra assigns from Linear and takes a Claude or ChatGPT subscription on its own cloud; OpenHands needs a hand-registered webhook for Linear and needs the CLI's login already on the machine. If you want to self-host, use OpenHands.
- Yes means the vendor's own app starts a run from the issue itself, with nothing to commit to the repo first. Sinatra's trigger is the Sinatra label that ships with the GitHub App install (`sinatraai` on the hosted app). Partial means either that a workflow file and an API-key secret have to be added per repository first, or that the mention only works on pull requests and not on issues.
- Yes means assigning the ticket to the agent in Linear starts the run. Partial means the run starts some other way: an attachment link you click, or a trigger you configure yourself against Linear's webhooks. Assignment on its own does nothing.
- Yes means a changes-requested review is enough on its own: Sinatra reworks the branch and pushes the follow-up commit with no re-trigger and no mention. Partial means the agent acts only when it is @-mentioned in the thread, or only while its original session is still open.
- Yes means your own provider API key runs the agent everywhere the product runs it. Partial means keys work on some surfaces but not the one being compared here, either because the vendor documents them as local-CLI-and-desktop only, or because it never documents them covering its cloud agent at all.
- Yes means a Claude Pro/Max or ChatGPT subscription you already pay for authenticates the run on the vendor's hosted cloud. Partial means it works only where that CLI's login already sits on the machine: your own laptop or a self-hosted backend, not a clean cloud sandbox.
- Yes means you are never charged a marked-up model rate, either because you pay your provider directly, or because the vendor publishes the same per-token rates the provider does, or because model use is included in a flat plan with a published allowance. Partial means the answer depends on which plan you are on: no fee on the individual tiers, a published per-token fee on the team ones, charged even against your own key.
- Both halves have to be published: the plan price, and the rate for work past the plan. A published seat price sitting on top of an undisclosed credit, compute unit, or quota size is partial.
- Yes means the free tier states its daily allowance as a number. Sinatra's is 5 tasks a day with your own key or a Codex subscription, 1 a day on Sinatra's keys, no card. Partial means a free plan exists but its allowance is not published.
- Yes means you can run without supplying a model key at all, because the vendor bills you for the model.
- Yes means an editor plugin or a desktop app; partial means a terminal CLI and nothing that runs inside an editor. Sinatra has neither, on purpose: the work starts in the tracker and comes back as a pull request. If you want an assistant inside your editor, that is a real reason to pick one of these instead, and several teams run both.
- Sinatra has no Slack trigger. GitHub and Linear are the only two ways to start a run, and a Slack-first team should weigh that.
- Yes means you can run the agent on infrastructure you control, or the source is open. Partial means execution or inference can be pointed at your own account while the product itself stays the vendor's and stays closed. Sinatra is hosted only; there is no self-managed build.
Read off each vendor's own documentation and pricing pages on September 3, 2026.
How you start it
- Add the Sinatra label to a GitHub issue. The label ships with the GitHub App install and is named after the app (
sinatraaion the hosted one) - Assign a Linear ticket to Sinatra, or @-mention it in a comment
- Label a GitHub issue
openhands, or comment starting with@openhands - @openhands on a pull request
- The OpenHands Cloud web app and the Slack app
- CLI, VS Code, JetBrains, and Zed over ACP
$20 per member per month for hosted sandboxes and orchestration, with model cost passed through at provider rates and no markup. Free tier: 5 tasks a day with your own key or Codex, 1 a day on ours. No card.
Sinatra pricing →The open-source build is free to run yourself. Hosted Individual is free with 10 conversations a day and bills model usage at cost with no markup; Enterprise is custom.
OpenHands pricing page →How you start a task
On GitHub these two are nearly identical, and neither wants a workflow file in your repository, so judge them on the pull requests rather than the trigger.
Linear is where they part. Sinatra installs a Linear app and you assign the ticket. OpenHands documents Linear under custom webhooks: fetch a signing secret, run a curl command yourself to register the hook, then build an automation on it. That is more flexible than an assignment and it is also a configuration project, with no "assign to OpenHands" in the Linear UI at the end of it.
On pull requests, OpenHands acts when @-mentioned. Sinatra treats a changes-requested review as the instruction and pushes the follow-up commit.
What it costs, in dollars
OpenHands is the one competitor here whose cost model Sinatra does not beat. Free locally, free hosted with a published cap, models "at cost, with no markup." That is an honest price list and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
So the comparison is not markup against no markup, because neither of us marks up models. It is a straight question of what the seat buys: a service somebody else operates, patches, and gets paged for. If you would rather own that, OpenHands hands you the source and you keep the twenty dollars.
Where Sinatra wins
Linear is an assignment, not a webhook. Assigning a ticket is something a product manager will do; registering a webhook with curl is not. For a team running its board in Linear, that is the difference between everyone using the agent and only the person who set it up using it.
Your subscription also works on the hosted cloud. Connect Claude Pro or Max, or a ChatGPT plan, and Sinatra's cloud runs on it. OpenHands can drive those CLIs over ACP, but its own docs are clear that the login is picked up from the machine the agent server runs on, so on OpenHands Cloud you are back to an API key. If the appeal of bring-your-own-key was using the subscription you already bought, that distinction is the whole thing.
Rework needs no mention, and there is nothing to operate: no container, no model gateway, no upgrade to schedule.
Where OpenHands wins
It is open source and you can self-host it. Sinatra has no answer to that at all. You can read the agent loop, patch it, run it air-gapped, and keep running it if All Hands AI disappears tomorrow. For a team with a compliance requirement or a preference for owning its tools, that ends the conversation, and it should.
The free tier is also more generous for exploration: ten hosted conversations a day against Sinatra's five tasks, plus an unlimited local build. It runs in your editor through VS Code, JetBrains, and Zed over ACP, where Sinatra has no editor surface at all. And it has grown well past issue-to-PR into scheduled tasks, channel monitors, custom webhooks, a Slack app, and an SDK for building your own agent on the same machinery.
Looking for an OpenHands alternative?
The honest version is short. Most people looking are not unhappy with the pricing. They are looking at the cost of operating it, or they want the tracker to be the interface rather than a webhook they maintain.
What Sinatra replaces is the configuration. Install a GitHub App and a Linear app, connect a credential, assign a ticket. No gateway, no automation to author, no server to patch. In exchange you give up the source, self-hosting, and the editor integrations, and you pay $20 per member per month for not operating any of it.
If you are here because you want to stop paying for a hosted agent, you are searching in the wrong direction. OpenHands' local build is the cheapest option in this market and Sinatra does not beat it.
Switching, or running both
Two different labels, two branches, two pull requests, no merges, so a repository can carry both installs without either reacting to the other's work. Take five real tickets, hand the same five to each, and read the ten pull requests. Both free tiers cover their own half, so this costs an afternoon and no money.
Questions people ask about OpenHands and Sinatra
Is OpenHands free?
The open-source build is free on your own hardware, and the hosted Individual plan is free with a published cap of 10 conversations a day. You still pay for models, with your own key or through OpenHands at cost.
Does OpenHands work with Linear?
Not as a native assignment. Its docs treat Linear as a custom webhook you register yourself with a curl command, then wire into an automation.
Can OpenHands run on my Claude Pro or Max subscription?
Partly. It drives Claude Code or Codex over ACP using a login already on the machine, and its own docs note a clean cloud sandbox has none, so OpenHands Cloud needs an API key.
Which should a small team pick?
If someone wants to own the infrastructure, OpenHands, and it is not close. If nobody wants to run a service and the backlog is in Linear, Sinatra.
Where these facts came from
Every mark on this page was read off OpenHands's own documentation and pricing pages on September 3, 2026, not from a third-party roundup. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix the page.