Cycles vs KeepAI: Which is Better in 2026?
A comprehensive comparison of Cycles and KeepAI covering features, pricing, use cases, and which tool is the right choice for your needs.
⚡ Quick Verdict
Choose Cycles if:
- →You need a broader feature set (7 features vs 6)
- →You need pre-execution gating on cost, risk and tool action or self-hosted with no prompt storage, apache 2.0 licensed
Choose KeepAI if:
- →You want more affordable paid plans (from $5/mo)
- →You need one control layer across all agents and apps or fine-grained scoping beneath coarse app permissions
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Cycles vs KeepAI: At a Glance
Pricing Comparison: Cycles vs KeepAI
Understanding the pricing differences between Cycles and KeepAI is crucial for making the right choice. Here's how their plans compare side by side.
Cycles Pricing
KeepAI Pricing
💡 Pricing takeaway: Both Cycles and KeepAI offer free tiers, making it easy to try before you buy. Compare the specific plans to find the best value for your use case.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Here's how every feature from Cycles and KeepAI stacks up.
What Makes Each Tool Unique
🔵 Unique to Cycles
Features available in Cycles but not in KeepAI:
- ✓Pre-execution gating on cost, risk and tool action
- ✓Self-hosted with no prompt storage, Apache 2.0 licensed
- ✓Fail-closed on reserve-time outage
- ✓Published performance: 34ms p99 shared reserve, 891 reserves/sec
- ✓4 SDKs with durable recovery
- ✓Protocol spec plus interactive API and admin API references
- ✓Free blast radius, risk and model cost calculators
🟣 Unique to KeepAI
Features available in KeepAI but not in Cycles:
- ✓One control layer across all agents and apps
- ✓Fine-grained scoping beneath coarse app permissions
- ✓Approval gates on sensitive actions
- ✓One-click revocation per agent
- ✓Real-time approval and violation notifications
- ✓Credentials stay local, connections end-to-end encrypted
Use Case Recommendations
Best for: Cycles
Cycles is a runtime authority layer that stops autonomous agents before they spend too much or take a risky action, rather than reporting on it afterwards. Gating happens pre-execution against cost and risk criteria and against the specific tool action being attempted, which is the difference between a control and an audit log. It is self-hosted with no prompt storage and licensed Apache 2.0, so the enforcement path runs inside your own infrastructure and the code is inspectable — an important property for something sitting in front of every agent action. The published operational numbers are unusually specific for this category: a shared reserve at 34ms p99 for a single client and 891 reserves per second, with 4 SDKs, durable recovery and 12/12 on each, plus a documented fail-closed behaviour on reserve-time outage, which is the correct default for a spend control. Over 21,292 package installs are reported. Documentation covers a protocol spec, interactive API and admin API references, integration guides, security and incident patterns, and there are free calculators for blast radius, risk and Claude-versus-GPT cost. Self-hosting is free; the paid tiers are support and services contracts rather than software licences.
Ideal use cases:
- •Teams or individuals who need pre-execution gating on cost, risk and tool action
- •Teams or individuals who need self-hosted with no prompt storage, apache 2.0 licensed
- •Teams or individuals who need fail-closed on reserve-time outage
- •Teams or individuals who need published performance: 34ms p99 shared reserve, 891 reserves/sec
- •Anyone focused on ai-agents workflows
- •Anyone focused on governance workflows
Best for: KeepAI
KeepAI is a local API hub that puts a permission boundary between AI agents and the apps they connect to. The problem it targets is access sprawl: each agent needs its own keys, permissions live in different dashboards, pausing a misbehaving agent means chasing API keys across apps, and what works with one agent and one app becomes unmanageable with several of each. KeepAI sits in the middle instead — you connect Gmail, Notion, Dropbox, HubSpot, Trello, GitHub or Airtable once, then decide per agent what each one may do. Because most app OAuth scopes are coarse, KeepAI narrows them further; sensitive actions can be forced through an explicit approval step while routine ones run unattended; real-time notifications tell you when an agent requests approval or trips a blocked action; and an activity log records exactly what each agent did and when. Access to any agent can be revoked in one click rather than by hunting through provider dashboards. The security posture is the pitch: the project is open source, credentials and tokens stay on your own devices, agent connections are end-to-end encrypted, and no sign-up is required to start. It works with OpenClaw, Claude, Codex and other agent runtimes, and is currently in open beta with launch pricing locked for the life of the subscription.
Ideal use cases:
- •Teams or individuals who need one control layer across all agents and apps
- •Teams or individuals who need fine-grained scoping beneath coarse app permissions
- •Teams or individuals who need approval gates on sensitive actions
- •Teams or individuals who need one-click revocation per agent
- •Anyone focused on agents workflows
- •Anyone focused on permissions workflows
🤖 Other AI Agent Infrastructure Tools to Consider
Cycles and KeepAI aren't the only options. Here are other popular tools in the same space:
SuperAGI
Open-source autonomous AI agent framework with visual dashboard — 14K GitHub stars
MetaGPT
Multi-agent AI framework simulating software teams — 45K GitHub stars, builds full apps from prompts
Cerebras
Fastest LLM inference powered by the Wafer Scale Engine.
Scale AI
AI data platform for training data and model evaluation.
Roboflow
End-to-end computer vision platform for developers.
Labelbox
Enterprise data labeling platform for ML training datasets.
Is one of these your tool?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Cycles better than KeepAI?
It depends on your needs. Cycles offers 7 key features including Pre-execution gating on cost, risk and tool action and Self-hosted with no prompt storage, Apache 2.0 licensed, while KeepAI provides 6 features including One control layer across all agents and apps and Fine-grained scoping beneath coarse app permissions. Cycles uses a freemium model with a free tier, while KeepAI is paid with free access available. Choose based on which features and pricing model align with your requirements.
Is Cycles cheaper than KeepAI?
KeepAI is cheaper, starting at $5/month compared to Cycles's $1,500/month. Both tools offer free tiers, so you can try each before committing. Always check the official websites for the most current pricing.
Can I use Cycles and KeepAI together?
Yes, many users combine Cycles and KeepAI in their workflow. Cycles excels at pre-execution gating on cost, risk and tool action, while KeepAI shines with one control layer across all agents and apps. Using both allows you to leverage the strengths of each tool, though this means managing two subscriptions — though free tiers can help manage costs.
What's the main difference between Cycles and KeepAI?
While both are ai agent infrastructure tools, Cycles emphasizes pre-execution gating on cost, risk and tool action, whereas KeepAI is known for one control layer across all agents and apps. The best choice depends on your specific workflow and feature priorities.
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