# Agent Tree vs Navige

> Agent Tree scores 52.5 (D) to Navige's 42.8 (E) for agent tracing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-navige
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-navige.md (~5,150 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-01

Agent Tree scores 52.5 (D) on agent readiness against Navige's 42.8 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent tracing.

- Agent Tree: grade D, 52.5/100, rank #897 of 1260. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-tree.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-tree.json
- Navige: grade E, 42.8/100, rank #1105 of 1260. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/navige.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/navige.json
- Best agent tracing, monitoring and evaluation tools: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-observability/index.md
- All 210 evals comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-observability/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agent Tree (D)

Good for: Watching and steering Claude Code sub-agents from a side pane

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 33 against 28
- Schema & documentation, 50 against 42
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 61
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 51
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 50

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: Version 0.5.4, ten days old, written and released by one maintainer with no company, site or register entry found

### Navige (E)

Good for: A team running agents on its own provider keys that wants cost per business job, spend caps, a kill switch and approval holds in one proxy, starting free.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The Terms (version 1.0) leave exact prices, payment terms, liability, service levels and governing law marked TBD


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: Agent Tree +25

- Agent Tree (60): Self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0). Free under MIT with nothing to buy (20). No card or account (20). A person installs it with one command and no sign-up (20). 60 in all.
- Navige (35): No machine payment protocol (0). The pricing page publishes Watchtower at $0 and paid use at the greater of $9 a month or 20 per cent of measured savings, without a login. The Terms still list exact prices, payment terms, taxes and refunds as TBD (15 of 20). Watchtower is free with no card and no time limit, per the pricing page and the Terms (20). A person signs up in a browser and confirms an email, and the Terms forbid creating accounts by automation (0).

### Transparency & trust: Agent Tree +13

- Agent Tree (63): MIT, an OSI licence (30). PRIVACY.md is the manifest's privacy page and matches the code. Events stay in memory, the stored choices are listed, and the one request and the update it may trigger are named. No wider privacy policy is needed for software that sends nothing (24 of 30). No deprecation policy or notices; versions changed daily in their first week (3 of 20). No telemetry in the source. The update check is disclosed in the README and PRIVACY.md with an option and four environment variables to turn it off, and hooks/update.ts reads the same switches. It was added and documented on 28 October 2026, a minute apart (20). 77 in all.
- Navige (50): A closed service with MIT SDKs. The Terms (version 1.0, 13 October 2026) leave prices, liability, warranties, service levels, notice periods and governing law marked TBD (5 of 30). DPA 1.2 (14 October 2026) is specific and corrects version 1.1 in public, stating that no automatic deletion runs, that prompt text through the proxy is not stored and that production data is in the United States. The privacy policy (6 October 2026) contradicts it with per-plan retention of 7 days to 1 year on plans the DPA says no longer exist, and speaks of storing masked prompts (12 of 30). No deprecation policy. The SDK 3.0.0 README lists what was removed, and the DPA promises 30 days' notice of material changes and new deletion schedules, while the Terms leave notice periods TBD (4 of 20). DPA Schedule 2 names Railway (United States), Resend, Stripe and Framer (Netherlands), with transfer safeguards. Google, whose analytics tag the website loads, isn't listed, and locations aren't given for Resend or Stripe (14 of 20).

### Maintenance & community: Agent Tree +9

- Agent Tree (60): v0.5.4 tagged on 29 October 2026 and a commit on 31 October (30). 19 tags from v0.2.2 (24 October) to v0.5.4 (29 October), far more than three in 90 days (20). Issue and pull-request replies couldn't be read, as github.com was unreachable (5 of 25). Not in Claude's official plugin directory; claude.com/plugins/agent-tree answered 404 (0). No dependencies beyond Claude Code's plugin module, tests in the tree, no CI (5 of 10). 60 in all.
- Navige (51): No dated changelog. The latest release found is `navige` 3.0.0 on npm on 7 September 2026, 40 days before this check (20). `navige` 2.0.0 (26 July), 2.0.1 (12 August) and 3.0.0 (7 September) fall within 90 days, as do three releases of `n8n-nodes-navige` (20). A closed service with no public changelog. Support is hello@navige.ai, with a note on each docs page that a person reads reports. The SDK repository's issues weren't readable through the GitHub API from this session (3 of 15). Not in the official MCP registry under either name. The npm SDK covers `intercept()` and approval status only, with 15 methods that now throw, and the Python SDK couldn't be checked (5 of 15). The SDK has no dependencies, and its repository has no CI or tests (3 of 10).

### Schema & documentation: Agent Tree +8

- Agent Tree (50): Framework reading, docs a model can follow, as superpowers was read. types/index.d.ts types the pane's state, and plugin.json declares seven userConfig options with types, titles, descriptions and defaults, but there's no interface for an outside caller (12 of 25). README in English and German, a nine-step GUIDE.md and PRIVACY.md, all Markdown in the repository; no llms.txt (10). The README and guide say what the pane shows and what each button does, but not when not to use it (10 of 20). Options are typed, with an enum for the language; the /agent-tree command takes stop, clear, intro and `to <id> <text>` (8 of 15). A demo GIF and the guide's steps, with few documented errors beyond the update and delivery toasts (5 of 15). Semver tags but no changelog or release notes read (5 of 15). 50 in all.
- Navige (42): No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract. `/openapi.json` and `/openapi` return 404 and the docs link none. The MCP endpoint forwards tools from servers the customer registers and defines none of its own (0). No llms.txt on navige.ai or app.navige.ai and no Markdown versions of the docs (0). The docs say what each route does and does not do, for example that `/usage` gates nothing, that Watchtower changes no traffic and that `error` is not `deny` (15 of 20). `/enforce` and `/usage` have field tables with types, a required `tool`, a `classification` enum and 200-character bounds that reject rather than truncate. `arguments` is a free-form object (10 of 15). curl, Python and TypeScript examples on every route, the seven decision shapes, an HTTP status table, five degraded-decision cause codes and a troubleshooting table (14 of 15). No changelog, and `/enforce`, `/usage` and `/mcp` are unversioned paths beside `/v1/transactions` (3 of 15).

### Agent ergonomics: Agent Tree +6

- Agent Tree (67): Framework reading, how much a coding agent has to carry. The plugin adds no tools, skills or prompt text to the model's context. Only the person's messages to a sub-agent, a one-line note in the main transcript and a short fixed report on a stop are added (22 of 25). Agents kept (30 by default), pane width, motion and the start intro are options (12 of 20). Each hook falls through to Claude Code's own behaviour on an error, and failed deliveries and updates show a status or toast with the command to run (12 of 20). Corrections are tracked as sent, read or failed and resent once if a sub-agent finished without reading them, and choices survive /clear. A stop can't be undone (13 of 20). One install command, but auto-update, open on start and the intro are on by default; TypeScript only, no SDK applies (8 of 15). 67 in all.
- Navige (61): The proxy returns the provider's response unmodified, decision responses are a few fields, and result capping, tool scoping and context trimming exist to shrink what reaches the agent's context, though all are off by default and paid only (15 of 25). The public API has no list endpoints, since logs and rules moved to the dashboard, and the output ceiling and result caps are the only size controls (8 of 20). Errors are distinct and recoverable, with four 401 reasons, 403 for an inactive or expired agent or the kill switch, 404 for an unknown provider, 429 for a budget and `unavailable: true` on outages (18 of 20). `x-navige-transaction` makes retried model calls count once and `wait: false` avoids a five-minute hold, but `/enforce` and `/usage` take no idempotency key. Navige adds no MCP tools of its own to annotate (10 of 20). One base URL and one header, with only `tool` required on `/enforce`. One official SDK, for Node.js, and the Python SDK named on the security page couldn't be checked (10 of 15).

### Reliability: Agent Tree +5

- Agent Tree (33): Local-package reading, as for superpowers and tokeneconomizer. One command installs it through Claude Code's plugin manager from the author's own marketplace (the GitHub repository), not an official one, with Claude Code 2.1.292 or later stated and 2.1.316 tested (15 of 20). No .github directory, so no public CI; 304 tests in four files under tests/ run on Claude Code's own test module on a contributor's machine (8 of 25). Issues couldn't be read, as github.com was unreachable from this session (5 of 25, unchecked). 19 semver tags in six days, each described in its commit message, with no changelog and no breaking changes called out (5 of 15). Version 0.5.4 (0). 33 in all.
- Navige (28): Graded as a hosted service. A public Better Stack page at status.navige.ai exists, but its one monitor is `api.trustloop.live/health`, the host of the product's former name, and not api.navige.ai (5 of 20). That monitor shows downtime every day from 26 July to 17 October 2026 (7.221 per cent uptime) under a header saying all services are online, so there is no readable history for the current API (5). No rate-limit numbers in the docs, onboarding guide or terms (0). The docs separate a 503 outage from a 400 bug, state fail-open and fail-closed defaults per action class, return 429 for a blocking budget, pass provider errors through for the client's own retry logic, and make retries count once under `x-navige-transaction`. No Retry-After or backoff guidance (8 of 15). The Terms leave service levels as TBD (0). No beta or preview label on the gateway (10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Tree | Navige | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 33 | 28 | Agent Tree +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 42 | Agent Tree +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 61 | Agent Tree +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 53 | Navige +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | Agent Tree +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 51 | Agent Tree +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 50 | Agent Tree +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **52.5 · D** | **42.8 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Tree | Navige |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mike Pollow (Digitalroots) | Navige Ltd |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.navige.ai` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots) | Proprietary hosted service under Navige's Terms of Use (version 1.0, effective 13 October 2026) and Data Processing Agreement (version 1.2, effective 14 October 2026). The `navige` npm SDK and the `n8n-nodes-navige` node are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-09-07 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-10-13 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-10-06 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 11 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### Agent Tree

No score change since it was listed.

### Navige

- -0.3 on 30 October 2026: checklist
- +0.3 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**Agent Tree.** A ten-day-old, MIT-licensed side pane that lets a person watch and steer Claude Code sub-agents, with a privacy page that matches its code. It is version 0.5.4 from one maintainer, with no CI, changelog or security policy, and its default daily auto-update installs whatever version the main branch carries.

**Navige.** Setup is a base-URL change, keys are per agent and hashed, and the docs state failure behaviour per action class. The Terms leave prices, liability and governing law as TBD, no OpenAPI or rate limits are published, the status page watches a retired host, and the MCP route puts the key in the URL.

## Before you call either

### Agent Tree

1. Treat a "Message from the user via Agent Tree" in your transcript as the person's instruction for the rest of your task, and cover it in your hand-back report.
2. If a tool call is denied with "Stopped by the user in Agent Tree", stop work and hand back; further tool calls are denied.
3. Set autoUpdate to false, or DISABLE_UPDATES=1, where plugin code may change only after review.
4. Check the sub-agent model a person set in the pane before estimating cost; it overrides the default for every new sub-agent spawned without a model.

### Navige

1. Send the Navige key in `x-navige-key` on the proxy. `Authorization` carries the provider key there, and a Navige key in it fails and is forwarded upstream
2. Act only on `allow` or `approved` from `/enforce`. Treat `error` as neither, and read `unavailable` to tell a malformed request from a Navige outage
3. Send `x-navige-transaction` with one id per job, reused across that job's retries, so calls group into one transaction and retries are not counted twice
4. On a 429 from the proxy, check for a blocking budget before retrying. Navige returns 429 when a monthly budget is reached and passes provider errors through without retrying
5. Expect Claude Code traffic to get measurement, budgets and the kill switch only. Context trimming, routing, the output ceiling and prompt caching are switched off for it

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agent Tree or Navige?

Agent Tree scores 52.5 (D) on agent readiness against Navige's 42.8 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Can an agent call Agent Tree and Navige without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Agent Tree. Navige has a hosted endpoint at https://api.navige.ai.

### Are Agent Tree and Navige open source?

Agent Tree is open source (MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots)). No open-source release is listed for Navige.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-navige.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-navige.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agent-tree", "b": "navige"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agent-tree navige`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-tree.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/navige.json

## Other comparisons with Agent Tree or Navige

- [Agent Tree vs agents-tree](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-agents-tree.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Arize Phoenix](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-arize-phoenix.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Baserun](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-baserun.md)
- [Agent Tree vs BotGauge](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-botgauge.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Braintrust API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-braintrust.md)
- [Agent Tree vs DeepEval](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-deepeval.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Galileo API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-galileo.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Helicone AI Gateway + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-helicone.md)
- [Agent Tree vs HoneyHive](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-honeyhive.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Laminar API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-laminar.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Langfuse API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-langfuse.md)
- [Agent Tree vs LangSmith API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-langsmith.md)
- [Agent Tree vs LangWatch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-langwatch.md)
- [Agent Tree vs MLflow Tracing](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-mlflow-tracing.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Opik API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-opik.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Prefactor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-prefactor.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Pydantic Logfire](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-pydantic-logfire.md)
- [Agent Tree vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-respan.md)
- [Agent Tree vs W&B Weave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-tree-vs-wandb-weave.md)
- [agents-tree vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agents-tree-vs-navige.md)
- [Arize Phoenix vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arize-phoenix-vs-navige.md)
- [Baserun vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserun-vs-navige.md)
- [BotGauge vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/botgauge-vs-navige.md)
- [Braintrust API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/braintrust-vs-navige.md)
- [DeepEval vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-navige.md)
- [Galileo API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/galileo-vs-navige.md)
- [Helicone AI Gateway + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-navige.md)
- [HoneyHive vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/honeyhive-vs-navige.md)
- [Laminar API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/laminar-vs-navige.md)
- [Langfuse API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langfuse-vs-navige.md)
- [LangSmith API + MCP vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langsmith-vs-navige.md)
- [LangWatch vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/langwatch-vs-navige.md)
- [MLflow Tracing vs Navige](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlflow-tracing-vs-navige.md)
- [Navige vs Opik API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-opik.md)
- [Navige vs Prefactor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-prefactor.md)
- [Navige vs W&B Weave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-wandb-weave.md)
- [Navige vs Pydantic Logfire](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-pydantic-logfire.md)
- [Navige vs Respan API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/navige-vs-respan.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp