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It's a split decision.
Choose Amp if you want agents that can keep working, phone continuation, and team sharing without extra team fees. Its Hobby plan is free, but hosted orb rates are unpublished; Individual costs $20/month and includes 45,000 hosted orb minutes. Choose Claude Code if you want coding from a terminal, IDE, Slack, or web. Pro costs $17/month billed annually or $20 monthly and includes Claude Code; the free plan does not.
01Side by side
| Amp | Claude Code | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $20/month Individual; hosted orb pay-as-you-go rates unpublished | $17/month annually or $20 monthly for Pro |
| Free plan | Hobby is free; unlimited self-hosted orbs, no Amp token fees | Free plan available, but Claude Code is excluded |
| Best for | Persistent agents, phone continuation, teammate sharing, scheduled checks | Issue-to-PR coding from terminal, IDE, Slack, or web |
| Core strength | Agents can test, rebase, ship, and monitor rollouts | Codebase mapping, multi-hour refactors, tests, and pull requests |
| Learning curve | Not stated on the vendor's site | Not stated on the vendor's site |
| Integrations and workflow | Phone continuation, sharing, own runners, public and private repos | Terminal, IDE, Slack, web, GitHub, and GitLab issue workflows |
| Team and seat costs | Teams have no extra charge; any size, shared billing | Standard seats: $20/month annually or $25 monthly |
| Support | Review score: 5/10; support details not stated | Review score: 6/10; support details not stated |
Amp Choose Amp if
- Choose Amp if persistent agents and phone continuation matter.
- Choose Amp if you want free self-hosted orbs.
- Choose Amp if your team wants shared billing without seat fees.
Claude Code Choose Claude Code if
- Choose Claude Code if you need its free plan for other Claude features.
- Choose Claude Code if you work across terminal, IDE, Slack, or web.
- Choose Claude Code if annual Pro billing at $17/month fits.
02Pricing compared
According to the pricing pages, Amp Hobby costs $0 per month, but hosted orbs are pay-as-you-go and their rates are not published. Individual costs $20 per month and includes 45,000 minutes of Amp-hosted orb time; self-hosted orbs are unlimited and free. Amp Teams adds no charge for teams of any size, with shared billing and pooled credits.
Claude Code is included with Claude Pro, at $17 per month billed annually ($200 upfront) or $20 billed monthly. Claude’s free plan does not include Claude Code. Max starts at $100 per month, and Team Standard seats cost $20 per seat monthly with annual billing or $25 with monthly billing. The practical price difference: Amp’s hosted usage can add an unpublished cost, while Claude’s plans have usage limits and API charges can apply separately. Compare expected usage, not just the entry price.
03Features and depth
Amp’s clearest distinction is persistent work. Its agents can keep working after you close your laptop, and you can continue from your phone or share work with teammates. Amp also lists scheduled automations for checking production and monitoring rollouts, plus multimedia prompts, including screen recordings and dictated instructions. Agents can run tests, rebase changes, ship to main, and monitor rollouts.
Claude Code is built around coding work from a terminal, IDE, Slack, or the web. Anthropic says it can read a codebase, run commands, handle bug fixes and tests, and open pull requests from GitHub or GitLab issues. Its listed features include codebase onboarding, multi-hour refactors, code review, TypeScript Mods, and Projects for grouping and supervising sessions. Code Review is generally available for Team and Enterprise, per the product information.
The choice is less about a proven coding-quality winner—the published material provides no comparative benchmark—and more about workflow: Amp emphasizes persistent, shareable agents; Claude Code emphasizes codebase work and issue-to-PR flows.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Claude Code offers several places to work: terminal, IDE, Slack, or web. That flexibility may help teams fit it into existing routines, though its feature set spans coding sessions, Projects, and plan-based usage limits. The free Claude plan is not a way to try Claude Code; Pro is the lowest listed plan that includes it.
Amp is aimed at developers who want to start or continue agent work across devices, with sharing and scheduled automation available in its feature set. Hobby gives individuals a no-monthly-cost starting point, but hosted orb use is pay-as-you-go at unpublished rates. Individual makes the hosted allowance clearer: 45,000 minutes monthly for $20. Teams share billing without an added team charge, according to the pricing page. Neither product’s published information spells out setup time or a learning curve, so we would not call one easier outright.
Questions people ask
Is anything better than Claude Code?
There is no evidence here that one coding agent produces better code than another. Amp may fit better if persistent agents, phone continuation, and teammate sharing matter most. Claude Code may fit better if you want coding from a terminal, IDE, Slack, or web. The right choice depends on workflow and cost.
Is Claude Code still the best coding agent?
The published information does not establish a best-in-class coding agent, and it includes no head-to-head benchmark. Claude Code has codebase onboarding, issue-to-PR workflows, and multi-hour refactors. Amp emphasizes persistent work, phone continuation, and scheduled automations. Compare those capabilities against your own workflow.
How good is Amp?
Amp’s listed strengths are agents that keep working after you close your laptop, phone continuation, teammate sharing, and scheduled production checks. Its free Hobby plan still charges pay-as-you-go for hosted orbs, at rates the pricing page does not publish. The published review rates Amp 7.4 overall.
Is Claude Code better at coding than regular Claude?
Claude Code is Anthropic’s coding agent, designed to read code, run commands, handle tests, and open pull requests. The published information does not compare its coding quality with regular Claude in a controlled test. Pro includes Claude Code; the free plan does not.