Three terminal coding agents from three tech giants, each with a fundamentally different philosophy. Meta’s Muse Code trades your data for cheap tokens. Anthropic’s Claude Code charges premium prices for premium quality. AWS’s Kiro Crew gives you the source code and runs agents 24/7. Here is how they compare across every dimension that matters for working developers.
Quick comparison table
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Kiro Crew |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | Meta | Anthropic | AWS |
| Launch | August 5, 2026 (beta) | February 2025 | August 4, 2026 |
| Platform | macOS, Linux | macOS, Linux, Windows | macOS, Linux, Windows |
| Open source | No | No | Yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Cheapest output pricing | $0.20/M (contributor) | $10/M (Sonnet 5 intro) | Model-dependent |
| Standard output pricing | $4.25/M | $10/M (Sonnet 5 intro) | Model-dependent |
| Data training | Yes (contributor tier) | No | No |
| Persistence | Crash-safe event log | Session-based | 24/7 persistent workspace |
| Subagents | Persistent background | Per-task | Multi-agent with ACP |
| IDE integration | None | None (terminal only) | Desktop app + web dashboard |
| Subscription option | No (API only) | Pro $20, Max $100-$200 | Free/Pro $19/Pro Max $100 |
| Scheduled tasks | No | No | Yes (cron, webhooks) |
Pricing models
Muse Code
Muse Code is API-only with two tiers:
- Standard: $1.25 input / $4.25 output per million tokens
- Contributor: $0.10 input / $0.20 output per million tokens (Meta trains on your data)
No subscription plan exists. You pay per token, every time. For heavy users, costs can add up even on the contributor tier if you generate millions of tokens daily.
Claude Code
Claude Code offers both subscription and API access:
- Pro plan: $20/month (included with Claude subscription, usage-capped)
- Max 5x: $100/month (5x the Pro usage limits)
- Max 20x: $200/month (20x the Pro usage limits)
- API direct: $2/$10 per million tokens (Sonnet 5 introductory, through August 2026)
- API standard: $3/$15 per million tokens (Sonnet 5 from September 2026)
The subscription tiers give predictable monthly costs. The API route gives pay-as-you-go flexibility but can get expensive on heavy agentic workloads.
Kiro Crew
Kiro Crew separates the orchestration layer from the model costs:
- Orchestration: Free (open-source, self-hosted) or included in Kiro subscription
- Kiro subscription: Free (50 interactions/month), Pro $19/month, Pro Max $100/month
- Model costs: Depends on which model you route through (can use any provider)
Because Kiro Crew is open-source and model-agnostic, you can run it with DeepSeek, Qwen, or any compatible model. This makes the floor price significantly lower than either competitor, but you manage the infrastructure yourself.
Data privacy
This is the sharpest divide between the three.
Muse Code
- Contributor tier: Meta explicitly trains future models on your prompts, code, and completions. Your proprietary code becomes Meta’s training data.
- Standard tier: No data sharing for training. Standard API privacy applies.
- Closed model: Muse Spark 1.2 is not open-weight despite Meta’s history with Llama.
Claude Code
- No training on data: Anthropic does not train on API customer data or subscription usage by default.
- Enterprise contracts: Additional data protection guarantees available.
- Clear policy: No tier system that trades privacy for price. Same privacy for all users.
- Trust & Safety: Anthropic has published safety cards and third-party evaluations.
Kiro Crew
- Open source: All code is visible, auditable, and modifiable (Apache 2.0 license).
- Self-hostable: Run on your own infrastructure with complete data sovereignty.
- Model choice: Use privacy-respecting providers or local models.
- Defense in depth: Ships with security features by default, but you control the stack.
If privacy is your top concern, Kiro Crew wins by default. You own the entire pipeline. Claude Code is the best closed-source option with clear no-training guarantees. Muse Code’s contributor tier is the worst option for privacy, full stop.
Persistence and runtime
Muse Code: Crash-safe sessions
Muse Code uses a local event log where every action is appended. If the process crashes or your machine restarts, the agent resumes from the exact point of interruption. This is not 24/7 operation. Sessions are user-initiated. But within a session, nothing is lost.
Claude Code: Session-based
Claude Code operates in traditional session mode. Start a session, work, end the session. There is no built-in crash recovery. If your terminal closes or connection drops, context is gone. You can resume from git state, but the agent has no memory of what it was doing.
Kiro Crew: 24/7 persistent workspace
Kiro Crew is designed to run continuously. Agents persist across sessions, carry memory and context, and can be triggered by cron schedules or webhooks. You can hand Kiro Crew a ticket queue, walk away, and come back to results. This is fundamentally different from either competitor.
Key persistence features:
- Scheduled recurring tasks (morning digests, PR monitoring, test detection)
- Webhook triggers from Slack, GitHub, or CI systems
- Checkpointed tasks with retries
- Self-learning: corrections become durable lessons
This makes Kiro Crew suitable for workflows that neither Muse Code nor Claude Code can handle: overnight PR reviews, continuous flaky test detection, or autonomous migration work.
Model quality
Muse Spark 1.2 (Muse Code)
- Terminal-Bench 2.1: 82.9%
- DeepSWE 1.1: 59.3%
- Trails Claude Opus 5 on all published benchmarks
- Beats GPT-5.6 Terra and Gemini 3.6 Flash on most
- Co-trained with Muse Code harness for agent-specific performance
- Speed: ~705 tok/s (reported, not independently verified)
Claude Sonnet 5 / Opus 5 (Claude Code)
- Claude Opus 5: 86.7% Terminal-Bench 2.1 (highest published)
- Claude Sonnet 5: Production workhorse, not directly benchmarked against Muse Spark
- Mature model family with established behavior patterns
- Extensive real-world validation (4% of all public GitHub commits involve Claude Code)
Model-agnostic (Kiro Crew)
- Uses whatever model you configure
- Can run Claude, GPT, Qwen, DeepSeek, or local models
- Quality depends entirely on your model choice
- No single benchmark applies
Tool calling
Muse Code
- Demonstrated 1,000+ tool calls in a 24-hour coding session
- Persistent subagents avoid re-initialization overhead
- Co-trained specifically for tool-use patterns
- File editing, compilation, profiling, testing all built in
Claude Code
- Extensive tool-calling library (file read/write, shell, search, web)
- Established patterns refined over 18+ months of production use
- Sub-agent spawning for parallelism
- Dynamic workflows and permission controls
Kiro Crew
- Orchestrates via Agent Client Protocol (ACP)
- Every step observable in real-time Activity view
- Multi-agent coordination with isolated context per conversation
- Webhook and cron triggers as tool-calling entry points
- Sub-agents return results to parent conversations
Supported languages
All three support a wide range of programming languages. There is no meaningful difference here.
| Languages | Muse Code | Claude Code | Kiro Crew |
|---|---|---|---|
| Python | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| JavaScript/TypeScript | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rust | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Go | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Java/Kotlin | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| C/C++ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ruby | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PHP | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shell scripting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SQL | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Use case fit
Muse Code is best for:
- Budget-conscious open-source developers who do not mind sharing code with Meta
- Long-running, complex coding tasks where crash recovery matters
- GPU kernel optimization and similar compute-heavy iterative work
- Teams that want the cheapest per-token pricing even on the standard tier
Claude Code is best for:
- Professional teams needing predictable subscription costs and privacy guarantees
- Production-grade coding where model quality is the top priority
- Windows developers who need cross-platform support
- Developers already in the Anthropic ecosystem (Claude Desktop, Claude Teams)
Kiro Crew is best for:
- Teams that need 24/7 autonomous operation without human initiation
- Organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements (self-host everything)
- Complex, multi-day workflows with scheduled checkpoints
- DevOps automation triggered by external events (CI failures, ticket queues)
- Teams that want to inspect and modify the orchestration logic (open source)
The philosophical divide
These three products represent three different visions for AI-assisted development:
Muse Code (Meta): AI coding should be cheap, and data should flow back to improve models. The social-media playbook applied to developer tools: you are the product (on the contributor tier).
Claude Code (Anthropic): AI coding should be private and high-quality. Pay fair market rate for a tool that respects your data. Premium price for premium product.
Kiro Crew (AWS): AI coding should be transparent, persistent, and customizable. Open-source the orchestration, let developers choose their own models, and make agents that run autonomously.
There is no single correct answer. Your choice depends on what you value most: cost, quality, privacy, autonomy, or persistence.
FAQ
Which is cheapest for casual use? Kiro Crew’s free tier (50 interactions/month) costs nothing. For pay-per-token, Muse Code’s contributor tier at $0.20/M output is the cheapest, but requires data sharing.
Which is best for proprietary code? Kiro Crew (self-hosted, fully private) or Claude Code (no training on data, clear privacy policy). Never use Muse Code’s contributor tier for proprietary code.
Can I use Kiro Crew with Claude models? Yes. Kiro Crew is model-agnostic and can route to any compatible model API, including Claude.
Does Claude Code work on Windows? Yes. Claude Code supports macOS, Linux, and Windows. Muse Code does not support Windows.
Which has the best crash recovery? Muse Code’s event log makes it replay-exact after crashes. Kiro Crew’s checkpointing handles long-running multi-session work. Claude Code has no built-in crash recovery.
Which is most mature? Claude Code, by a wide margin. It has been in production since 2025, handles 4% of GitHub commits, and passed $2.5B in run-rate revenue.
Can Muse Code run 24/7 like Kiro Crew? No. Muse Code sessions are user-initiated. It is crash-safe within a session, but does not run autonomously or trigger on schedules.
Which should I try first? Start with Claude Code if you want proven quality. Start with Kiro Crew if you want persistent agents and transparency. Start with Muse Code if cost is your primary concern.