Agentic Index
Manus vs OpenAI Atlas (2026)
Manus versus ChatGPT Atlas now has a time limited answer: OpenAI announced on July 9, 2026 that Atlas is being deprecated and will stop working on August 9, 2026, with its browser agent capabilities folding into the ChatGPT desktop app and a Chrome extension. Manus remains an operating general purpose agent with a free tier and Pro from 20 dollars a month, though it carries its own ownership uncertainty from the unwinding Meta acquisition. If you are choosing today, do not start on Atlas; evaluate Manus against the new ChatGPT desktop experience instead.
| At a glance | Manus | OpenAI Atlas |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Browser / computer-use agent | Browser / computer-use agent |
| Entry price | Free tier with three hundred daily refresh credits; paid Pro from twenty dollars per month, Extended at two hundred dollars per month | Free |
| Free / trial | Free plan at zero dollars with three hundred daily refresh credits and access to Manus 1.6 Lite, no credit card required | Free tier |
| Pricing confidence | public partial | public exact |
| Feature |
M
Manus
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
|
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
Full / Explicit | Partial |
|
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
Partial | Partial |
| Knowledge & context | ||
|
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
| Control & trust | ||
|
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
Partial | Partial |
|
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
No / Not documented | Partial |
| Solution readiness | ||
|
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
Partial | Partial |
| Platform extensibility | ||
|
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
Partial | Partial |
|
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
Partial | Full / Explicit |
|
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
No / Not documented | Partial |
| Specialist automation | ||
|
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing |
M
Manus
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Free tier with three hundred daily refresh credits; paid Pro from twenty dollars per month, Extended at two hundred dollars per month | Free |
|
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public — partial | Public — exact |
|
Billing Primary billing axis |
credit based subscription; every action consumes credits, complex tasks consume many | seats |
|
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
High variable cost | Low variable cost |
|
Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tierTrial
|
Free tier
|
|
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Self-serve | Self-serve |
Choose Manus if
- You need a browser capable agent you can adopt today without a shutdown date.
- General purpose task execution beyond browsing (research, design, app building) matters.
- Published credit based pricing from free to 20 dollars a month fits your use.
Choose OpenAI Atlas if
- There is no scenario for adopting Atlas now; it stops working on August 9, 2026.
- If you are already on Atlas, export bookmarks and data before the shutdown.
- Your path forward in the OpenAI ecosystem is the ChatGPT desktop app or Chrome extension, not Atlas.
OpenAI announced Atlas deprecation on July 9, 2026; the browser is scheduled to stop working on August 9, 2026, with agentic browsing moving into ChatGPT and Codex. Manus is mid unwinding from a blocked Meta acquisition; the service operates but ownership is unsettled.