Manus open source alternative - LangManus

introduction

In the AI ​​era, how can we let machines help us automate complex tasks? Manus, an AI agent product developed by a Chinese team, has attracted widespread attention for its powerful independent research and task execution capabilities. However, its access rights restrict the use of many developers.

Fortunately, the community has provided an open source alternative, LangManus, which is an AI automation framework that helps users automate various research tasks through intelligent planning, search, browser automation, and code execution.

In this article, we will teach you how to install and configure LangManus, and demonstrate how to use it to automate a real research task.

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LangManus: Open Source AI Task Automation Framework

Github address: https://github.com/langmanus/langmanus

LangManus' core features include: 

• ✅ Task planning and decomposition - intelligently decompose tasks and select the best execution path.

•  ✅ Search and crawling——Can integrate tools such as Tavily and Playwright to automate information crawling. 

• ✅ AI computing and analysis - calling AI models (such as OpenAI, DeepSeek) for data processing and reasoning. 

• ✅ Automated research report generation – automatically generate structured reports based on research requirements.

LangManus consists of two core modules :

• LangManus (backend): responsible for task scheduling and execution, and provides API interface.
• LangManus Web (front-end): Based on Web UI, it provides visual interaction.

Next, we will install and configure.

Install and configure LangManus

Install LangManus core

Step 1: Clone the code repository:

git clone https://github.com/langmanus/langmanus.gitcd langmanus

Step 2: Use UV for environment management:

uv syncuv pip install playwright # Install browser automation tool cp .env.example .env # Copy environment variable file

Step 3: Configure .env and specify the AI ​​model:

REASONING_MODEL_BASE_URL=https://api.deepseek.comREASONING_MODEL_NAME=deepseek-chatREASONING_MODEL_API_KEY=your_api_keyNON_REASONING_MODEL=deepseekVISION_MODEL=openai-gpt-4-vision

Step 4: Start the backend service:

uv run server.py # runs on port 8000 by default

Install LangManus Web

Step 1: Clone the web code:

git clone https://github.com/langmanus/langmanus-web.gitcd langmanus-web

Step 2: Copy and modify .env:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://localhost:8000 #Specify the backend API address

Step 3: Run the front end:

pnpm installpnpm run dev # Run on port 3000

At this point, we have completed the construction of the LangManus environment, and now we will move on to the actual application scenario!

Practical demonstration: Automating enterprise information research with LangManus

On the Manus official website, we found a research task: Get information about B2B companies under YC (Y Combinator). We will use LangManus to replicate this task.

To propose a task, in the LangManus Web interface, we enter:

“Get information on all B2B companies in YC W25 batch and generate a table.”

Task execution process LangManus will automatically complete the following steps:

• ✅Task planning?️——Identify the required information and break down the tasks.
• ✅Searching for YC official website? — Find the target webpage through Tavily or Google search.
• ✅ Browser automation? — Use Playwright to access the YC website and scrape company information.
• ✅Data processing and analysis? —— Analyze the structure of web pages and extract key information.
• ✅Report generation? - Organize enterprise data in tabular form and generate final report.

In the background log, we can see

• ✅ Browser automation in progress (Chrome interface open)

• ✅ Data extraction completed (company name, profile, financing information, etc.)
• ✅ Final report generation (can be exported to Excel / Markdown format)

Finally, we got a complete research report on corporate information! ?

Application scenarios of LangManus

In addition to the above cases, LangManus can also be applied to:

• ✅ Automated market research - competitor analysis, industry trend reports.
• ✅ Scientific research assistance - literature review, academic search.
• ✅ Code generation and execution — Combine AI to automate programming tasks.
• ✅ Intelligence gathering - monitor specific industry trends and automatically extract key information.

Summarize

As an AI task automation framework, LangManus provides a powerful open source alternative for users who cannot use Manus. It can not only automate research tasks, but also combine various AI tools to create various intelligent workflows, greatly improving productivity.