Open Source Startup Podcast E190: Open Sourcing AI Coding Platform Devin to Create OpenHands
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Jan 20, 2026 Robert Brennan, Co-founder and CEO of OpenHands, discusses the journey of creating an open-source alternative to traditional AI coding agents. His platform quickly attracted 67K stars on GitHub by prioritizing developer empowerment over replacement. Brennan emphasizes the importance of community, flexible tooling, and transparency in AI development. He also contrasts the inner and outer loops of coding, advocating for collaboration and accountability while sharing insights on OpenHands' organic growth and adoption among technical and enterprise users.
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From Viral README To Massive Community
- Robert Brennan started OpenDevon (now OpenHands) the day he saw Devin's demo and published a one-paragraph README that quickly gained thousands of stars.
- The project grew organically into a large open-source community with hundreds of contributors and tens of thousands of GitHub stars.
Open Source As The Natural Standard
- Developer infrastructure naturally trends toward open source as communities want hackable, customizable tools they can own.
- Betting on an open standard future helps projects gain adoption and community trust quickly.
Academic And Enterprise Early Adopters
- OpenHands attracted both non-technical experimenters and a strong technical audience including academics and enterprises.
- Academics used OpenHands as a harness to evaluate coding models, increasing its visibility and adoption in research.