GPT Researcher vs OpenHands (2026): which should you pick?

Pick GPT Researcher if

• Fits if you can run Python or Docker and want cited research reports
• Works for developers who want to choose their own search sources and models

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a hosted service, since there is none
• Skip it if you do not want a command line, as setup needs Python 3.11 or newer or Docker
• Watch out: you pay your LLM and search providers directly
• Too light on support: managed deployments and SLAs are by contacting the maintainers, with no price

Pick OpenHands if

• Fits if you can self-host and want coding agents on your own machine
• Makes sense if you already pay an LLM provider and want to use that key

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a hosted service, as the pricing page lists no vendor-hosted plan
• Tight if you grow, since Teams is capped at 10 users and 5,000 sessions a month
• Watch out: every plan needs your own LLM key and that cost is paid separately
• Watch out: SSO and roles are not in the free version

GPT Researcher

• There is no hosted service; you run it yourself with Python 3.11 or newer, or Docker.
• You pay your LLM and search providers directly; the site gives a few cents to a few dollars per deep run as a ballpark.
• Managed deployments, private-corpus retrievers and SLAs are handled by contacting the maintainers, with no listed price.

OpenHands

• You pay your LLM provider separately: every plan is bring-your-own-key.
• Teams is capped at 10 users (+$50 a month per seat) and 5,000 sessions a month.
• The free Agent Canvas has a single shared identity, with no user roles or SSO.
• Teams and Enterprise are self-hosted; the pricing page lists no vendor-hosted plan.

GPT Researcher

Planner and parallel researchers

A planner splits a question into sub-questions and runs a researcher on each at the same time before a writer drafts the report.

Many retrievers and your own files

The site lists 20+ retrievers, including Tavily, Google, Bing, Exa, arXiv and PubMed, which can be combined with MCP servers or local documents.

Cited reports

Each claim in the report is tied to a numbered source. Reports can be output as markdown, PDF, docx or plain text.

Deep research mode

Findings seed new questions, so a run explores a tree of subtopics instead of a single pass. Depth is configurable.

MCP server and API

The official gptr-mcp server exposes research tools to Claude, Cursor, n8n and other MCP clients, and a FastAPI server can be run from the repository.

OpenHands

Agent Canvas

A workspace for chatting with coding agents, customizing them and setting automations, run locally with your own LLM key.

Bring your own agent

Use third-party agents such as Claude and Codex alongside OpenHands, with MCP servers and secrets on every plan.

Event-driven automations

Start work from GitHub, Slack, Jira, Linear, schedules or other integrations, such as PR review or CI-failure fixes.

Team controls

Teams adds user identity and RBAC, SSO/SAML, budgeting and usage controls, and built-in OAuth integrations.

SDK and control plane

The product menu lists an SDK and an Agent Control Plane for building and governing agents across an organization.

GPT Researcher

• Open Source$0

  MIT-licensed Python package and MCP server that you host yourself; you pay your own LLM and search API providers.

OpenHands

• Agent Canvas$0

  Open source (MIT), self-hosted on your laptop or a shared VM; bring your own LLM key and agent.

• Teams$500

  per month for up to 10 users

  Self-hosted, multi-user RBAC, SSO/SAML, budgeting, built-in integrations; +$50 a month per extra seat.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Unlimited seats and organizations, enterprise agreement, SLA-based support and a customer success manager.

GPT Researcher

No public discounts listed.

OpenHands

• Other savings

  30-day trial of Teams

  The Teams plan is listed with a 30-day trial that can be started from the pricing page.