Manus vs. Qwen Chat

At a glance

Best for

Best for people who want a multi-step task carried through to a finished document, deck or site instead of answered in chat.

Freelancers
Small and mid-sized
Enterprise

Qwen Chat

Best for

Best for a capable, free assistant, and for developers who want open-weight models.

Freelancers
Small and mid-sized

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion	Manus	Qwen Chat
Starting price	Free tier; Pro from $20 / month Credit-based. Pro starts at 4,000 monthly credits for $20 and 8,000 for $40; Team starts at $20 per seat a month. Annual billing is advertised at 17% less.	Free No consumer subscription; API billed per token through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio.
Free trial	Free plan with 300 credits refreshed daily; 7-day free trial on the $40 Pro tier	Free to use, no subscription
Output	Slide decks, PDFs, spreadsheets, images and websites produced in a cloud sandbox	Chat with vision, documents, coding and web search
API	Yes, the Manus API	Yes
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS)	Not stated
Ecosystem	Web, desktop and mobile apps, Mail Manus for tasks by email, a Slack integration, MCP connectors and custom MCP servers, plus Zapier, Stripe, Shopify, Google Maps and bidirectional GitHub sync	Qwen model family and Alibaba Cloud Model Studio; many models as open weights
Live web search and sources	Yes, a cloud browser for autonomous web operations, plus a Browser Operator extension that drives the local browser	Yes, real-time web search with sources
Files and long documents	Yes, a persistent file system in the sandbox; creates PPTX, PDF, spreadsheets and images and returns them as files	Yes, PDF and document analysis
Images, voice and video	Multimedia processing for images, video, voice and speech, with AI image and AI music generation built in	Yes, image and document understanding through Qwen-VL
Coding help	Yes, writes and runs code in the sandbox, and a web app builder ships sites with a database, Stripe payments and SEO	Yes, code generation, with a specialised Qwen-Coder variant
Model choice	Yes, among Manus's own agents rather than among outside labs: Manus 1.6 Lite for faster everyday tasks and Manus 1.6 Max for deeper reasoning and creative work, switched per task in Agent Mode, with free accounts limited to 1.6 Lite and paid accounts adding Manus 1.6 and 1.6 Max. Inside a site built with the website builder, the LLM-powered features can run on any of ten models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, either named in the prompt or picked by Manus	Yes, switch between Qwen variants for vision, coding and reasoning
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base	Not stated
Company size	more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise	Freelancers, Small and mid-sized
Integrations	Slack, Zapier, Stripe, Shopify, Google Maps, GitHub, Figma	Not stated

Compare more tools

Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.

The short version

Key Differences

Starting price Manus Free tier; Pro from $20 / month Qwen Chat Free
Free trial Manus Free plan with 300 credits refreshed daily; 7-day free trial on the $40 Pro tier Qwen Chat Free to use, no subscription
Company size Manus Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Qwen Chat Freelancers, Small and mid-sized
Output Manus Slide decks, PDFs, spreadsheets, images and websites produced in a cloud sandbox Qwen Chat Chat with vision, documents, coding and web search
API Manus Yes, the Manus API Qwen Chat Yes

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

Manus

Strengths

Returns finished files instead of chat replies
Works in its own sandbox with a browser, a file system and the ability to install software
MCP connectors and custom MCP servers reach internal systems
Free plan with daily credits, and Pro starts at $20 a month

Limitations

Metered in credits, so the cost of a heavy task is hard to predict
The free plan runs the lighter Manus 1.6 Lite agent in Agent Mode
Concurrent tasks are capped by plan

Qwen Chat

Strengths

Free consumer app with no subscription
Web search, files, images and coding in one place
Many Qwen models available as open weights

Limitations

Smaller ecosystem than the best-known assistants
API runs through Alibaba Cloud

Plans

Pricing

Manus

Free $0 300 credits refreshed daily, Chat Mode and Manus 1.6 Lite in Agent Mode.
Pro From $20 / month From 4,000 monthly credits. A higher Pro tier is $40 a month for 8,000 credits and comes with a 7-day free trial. 17% off with annual billing.
Team From $20 per seat / month Everything in Pro plus collaboration tools, SSO, team analytics and shared templates. 17% off with annual billing.

Visit site

Qwen Chat

Free $0 Consumer app, no subscription.
API (pay-as-you-go) Not stated Billed per token through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio.

Visit site

What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

Manus

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Qwen Chat

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Where this comes from

Manus https://manus.im · checked against the official source on 2026-08-29

Qwen Chat https://chat.qwen.ai · no check date recorded yet

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.