TODO for AI
vs Manus
A general-purpose cloud agent that browses, researches and produces documents. Here is where each one wins, with numbers, and who should pick which.
Every providerWho should pick which
- You want a polished consumer research agent
- You never need it on your own computer or code
- You want the agent on your PC and your cloud VM, with your real Chrome
- You want to pick and mix models
- You need it to ship code and run your growth tasks
What Manus is, and where it stops
Manus popularised the general-purpose cloud agent: give it a goal, it browses, researches and hands back a document or a deck. It needs no setup and the demos are impressive. For a non-technical user who wants a one-off research task done, it is a fair choice.
It cannot touch your world. No access to your computer, your repos or your signed-in browser; you do not pick the model; and credit-based pricing means a heavy task can burn a month of plan in an afternoon.
Non-technical users who want one-off research and slide decks.
Three reasons Manus users look elsewhere
No PC, no repo, no real Chrome. It cannot act inside the tools you already use.
Cost per task is unpredictable and heavy work is expensive.
No choice, no cross-vendor review, no transparency about what ran.
Six dimensions that decide it
What each one ships
Same ladder, different meter
Abstract credits, about 200 per dollar, plus a 300-credit daily refresh. Top-ups never expire, but a heavy task can burn a plan in an afternoon.
One pool priced in dollars of model cost, spendable on any vendor. Session and weekly windows pace it, and a 1.3-1.5x plan multiplier applies, so a $20 plan is about $15 of list-price API. Team seat prices go into one shared pool.