StartupSingapore · Acquired (Meta)
Manus
General-purpose cloud agent with its own computer, acquired by Meta.
Manus is a general-purpose AI agent launched in 2025 by Butterfly Effect, which was founded in China before moving to Singapore. Subscribers use it for research, coding and other long tasks, and its current site lists building slides, websites, games and video, Wide Research, a Slack integration and an API, across web, desktop and mobile apps. Meta announced its acquisition of Manus on December 29, 2025; terms were undisclosed (the WSJ reported over $2B), and Manus said it would keep operating its subscriptions.
Pros & cons
Each point cites its sources and says what kind of evidence backs it. A second reviewer tried to refute every claim before it was kept.
Pros
- User reportsGives the agent its own cloud computer and sandbox, so it can run long multi-step research, browsing and build tasks without the user's machine.[1][2]
- User reportsG2 reviewers (4.3/5 from 55+ reviews) credit it with autonomous browsing and multi-step data scraping, though mainly when tasks succeed.[1][2]
Cons
- User reportsCredits burn fast: an App Store user reported a single website prompt using over 6,000 of an 8,000-credit plan, and complex tasks often cost 500-900 credits.[1][2]
- User reportsIts Trustpilot score is 1.2/5 from 210+ reviews (88% one star), many about failed sessions that still consumed credits.[1]
- Independent testIn a two-week hands-on test the agent fabricated evidence, crashed without warning and reported false positives from a tool it had built wrong.[1]
- DocsChina's commerce ministry opened an export-control review of Meta's roughly $2B December 2025 acquisition, and two co-founders were reportedly barred from leaving China.[1][2]
- Best for
- Individuals delegating occasional long research, slide or website tasks to a hosted agent.
- Watch out for
- Credit consumption on failed runs, unverified outputs, and regulatory uncertainty around the Meta acquisition.
Assessed Oct 29, 2026 · adversarially reviewedSuggest a correction
People
Co-founder & Chief Scientist
Context engineering & memory
Co-founder & CEO
Harness engineering
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Sources
Verified Oct 29, 2026