KeelenAnswer — choosing a tool
What are the alternatives to Devin?
Updated 20 August 2026
The alternatives split into four categories, and choosing the wrong category is the usual mistake. Editor assistants (GitHub Copilot, Cursor) accelerate the code you are writing. Terminal and CLI agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) execute a task you describe, with you present. Per-task cloud agents (Devin, Google Jules, the Copilot coding agent, OpenHands) take a ticket and return a pull request. Continuous product loops (Keelen) hold a standing roadmap and keep shipping without a ticket being assigned each time. Decide whether your bottleneck is typing speed, one-off tasks, or nobody driving the work at all.
The categories are complements more often than substitutes. Many teams keep an editor assistant for their own work and add something autonomous for the queue they never get to.
What to do, in order
Name your actual bottleneck
Typing speed, one-off tasks nobody has time for, or a backlog with no throughput at all. Each points at a different category, and no tool fixes a bottleneck it was not built for.
Check whose account the model runs on
Some products bundle model usage into their price; others run on credentials you connect. This is often the largest cost difference between two otherwise similar tools.
Ask what verifies the output
The important question is not how good the code looks, it is what stands between the code and your main branch. Tests, independent review, and a CI gate are what make autonomy safe.
Check the unit of work
A prompt, a ticket, or a standing roadmap. That choice decides how much of your own attention the tool needs to keep working.
Try one on a real repository
Benchmarks generalise poorly to your codebase. A week on your own repository, measured by pull requests merged rather than opened, settles it faster than any comparison table.
The four categories, and what each solves
Editor assistants remove keystrokes and stay under your hands. CLI agents execute a described task in your terminal with you present. Per-task cloud agents take a ticket and return a pull request, which suits a team that already has a well-groomed queue. Continuous loops hold the roadmap themselves, pick the next task, and keep going, which suits a backlog nobody is driving. These descriptions are of category workflows, not of any vendor's current feature list, so check the vendor's own documentation before deciding.
Where Keelen sits, honestly
Keelen is not another coding agent: it runs them. Claude Code, Codex, GLM, or Kimi does the writing on your credentials, inside a loop that also does the planning, the verification, and the recovery. The unit of work is a roadmap rather than a prompt or a ticket, so nobody has to assign anything for work to continue.
The question worth asking of any of them
Five gates stand between the loop and your main branch. New tests are applied without the implementation first and must fail, so tests born green are rejected. An independent reviewer that shares no context with the run that wrote the code reviews the diff. Your own test suite runs on a clean checkout. Nothing merges over a red required CI check. And a review window stands before gated auto-merge, which you can replace with plan-review sign-off, manual merge, or branch-only mode.
Whose account pays for the tokens
Keelen runs on credentials you connect: Anthropic Claude (a Claude Code subscription login or an API key, no Max plan required), OpenAI Codex, Zhipu GLM, or Moonshot Kimi. Token usage bills to your own provider account at cost. Keelen charges a flat monthly tier and never marks tokens up.
When Keelen is not the answer
- You want an assistant inside your editor while you type. That is a different category, and Keelen does not compete with it.
- You want one ticket done right now while you watch. A per-task agent fits that better than a standing loop.
- You are not willing to connect a repository to anything.
Hand the work to a loop
Connect a repository, write what you want in plain language, and review the tested pull requests that come back.
FAQ
What is the difference between an AI coding agent and an autonomous loop?
The unit of work. An agent executes a task you hand it and then stops. A loop holds a standing roadmap, picks its own next task, verifies the result, and continues. If you have to assign each piece of work, you have an agent.
Can I use Claude Code and Keelen together?
Yes, and it is a common setup. Claude Code is one of the engines Keelen can run, and you can also keep using it directly for your own work. Keelen also exposes an MCP server so you can drive it from Claude Code itself.
Which is best for a solo developer?
It depends on the bottleneck. If you are coding daily, an editor or CLI assistant compounds fastest. If the project sits untouched for weeks because you have no hours, a continuous loop is the category that addresses that.