# Amp coding agent

50 Hacker News commenters recommended Amp coding agent and 32 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Popular AI coding agent that people find capable and fast on hard tasks, with a free tier that shows ads. Caveat: usage costs can add up quickly.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong results on coding tasks (5 comments): "Amp blew me away and was my primary workhorse. Much better than anything out there for a time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46207957)) "has the best results. The librarian and oracle make it leagues ahead of the competition." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199341)) "is really solid agent and delivered much better results than many others" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46509202))
- Handoff and context management (3 comments): "It has better search and context management under the hood, which matters for big companies." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919293)) "its "handoff" feature is so much nicer than CC's compaction" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47097217)) "Amp Free I go on and on about handoff is so so good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971467))
- Avoids risky destructive actions (2 comments): "Using them since July I haven't found any problem with data loss and the clanker have not tried to delete my $HOME." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46401117)) "Amp Code doesn't go making random commits or dropping databases." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46548889))

## What people warn about

- Usage costs add up quickly (8 comments): "give it I try and you will not go back, except the price may a bit expensive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487590)) "I find the concept pretty appealing but the pricing is a bit scary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919246)) "I've used Amp a bit, and it's quite nice, but a bit more expensive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48143369))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [JetBrains Junie](https://hackerapproved.com/p/junie.md): 35 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://amp.dev/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Amp coding agent", https://hackerapproved.com/p/amp/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).