Head to head · Agent tracing · October 2026 research run
Agent Tree vs Respan API + MCP
Respan API + MCP scores 65.7 (B) on agent readiness against Agent Tree's 52.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Agent Tree leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent tracing.
Best agent tracing, monitoring and evaluation tools · All 210 evals comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Watching and steering Claude Code sub-agents from a side pane
Ahead on
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
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
Best for Teams that want a gateway and tracing in one integration and an agent that can manage prompts, datasets and evaluators over MCP.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 73 against 33
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 50
- Security & auth, 66 against 49
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 60
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
Watch for
67 MCP tools load by default, with delete tools and no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Reliability Respan API + MCP +40
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.
Respan API + MCP 73
Better Stack page at status.respan.ai with six components (web, logging and gateway, each for the platform and Enterprise) and an incident history page (20). The last 90 days show two incidents, both in late September. The Responses API path through the gateway was affected for OpenAI and Anthropic requests for 13 hours 47 minutes on 26 September, and request logs were delayed across all regions for 1 hour 58 minutes on 29 September. The uptime bars still read 100 per cent for every component (10, one major). Gateway and ingestion limits published per plan, 412 a minute on Free and 8,400 and 4,200 on Team (15). The OpenAPI spec declares 429 on several operations. We found no Retry-After or backoff guidance (10). The pricing page lists a 99.99 per cent uptime SLA on Enterprise, with terms not published (8). Gateway, logging and MCP are GA (10).
Schema & documentation Respan API + MCP +39
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.
Respan API + MCP 89
OpenAPI 3.1 at respan.ai/docs/openapi.json with 40 or more paths, and every MCP tool takes a zod schema (25). llms.txt, per-section llms.txt and .md for every page (10). MCP descriptions say when to use a tool and when not to. list_logs tells the model to filter server-side rather than fetch everything and to call get_log_detail for full data, and delete_dataset says it can't be undone (17). Typed inputs with operator enums, but page_size bounds sit in the description rather than the schema and filter values are any (11). Worked JSON examples in descriptions, and the spec documents 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 424, 429 and 503 responses (14). Weekly dated changelog. API paths mix /api/ and /api/v1/ with no version policy (12).
Payments & pricing Agent Tree +30
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.
Respan API + MCP 30
No x402 or other machine payment (0). Overage prices published without login, $8 per 100,000 logs and $1 per 1,000 scores on Team (20). The Free plan has 100,000 logs and unlimited seats. The pricing page doesn't say whether a card is needed, so half (10). Keys can be minted by API, but only with an existing Admin key, so a person still signs up in a browser first (0).
Maintenance & community Respan API + MCP +25
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.
Respan API + MCP 85
Packages published from the Apache-2.0 monorepo on 2026-09-30 (30). 195 commits and well over three package publishes since 3 July, and 13 dated changelog entries since 7 July (20). The MCP repository last changed on 15 September. We didn't load issue reply times. Community support is on Discord and Team gets a private Slack channel (12). Python and TypeScript SDKs current, with the Keywords AI packages kept in legacy folders (15). CI and an OpenAI Python compatibility workflow run in public (8).
Security & auth Respan API + MCP +17
Agent Tree 49
Harness reading of the framework checklist, as superpowers and tokeneconomizer were read. 30 for what leaves the machine and credentials, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. No credentials of its own, and the only request is a daily GET of plugin.json from the main branch carrying nothing about the session. Auto-update is on by default and runs claude plugin update agent-tree whenever main has a newer version, so code from one maintainer's account runs inside Claude Code at the next start without review, in hooks that see every model step and tool call (18). Hooks act only after the person acts in the pane, per PRIVACY.md and the code. Stops, messages and model changes are explicit. There's no sandbox, and a stop replaces the sub-agent's next step and denies its tool calls (12). Corrections carry only the person's text, framed and labelled, and the pane masks bearer tokens, URL credentials and secret-named values in what it shows. No guidance on untrusted content in sub-agent output (9). Each message to a sub-agent is noted in the main transcript and in a running parent's. The event log stays in memory and isn't kept after the session (8). No SECURITY.md, no security.txt and no advisories found; GitHub's security page couldn't be read (2). 49 in all.
Respan API + MCP 66
API keys carry Read, Write, Gateway and Admin scopes since 25 September, can have an expiry and spend caps, are bound to one project and stop working at once when revoked. The MCP server also takes OAuth (30). A Read-only key plus the tool allowlist gives a read-only agent, but the write and delete tools have no confirmation step of their own (15). Logs hold whatever the application sent, and we found no prompt-injection guidance for agents reading them (3). Every gateway call is logged against its key. The compliance page mentions audit logging without saying what customers can see (8). SOC 2 Type II (report under NDA), HIPAA BAAs and GDPR per the compliance page, and a trust centre at trustcenter.respan.ai that we didn't load. No security.txt or SECURITY.md, and security fixes appear in the changelog as one-liners (10).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Agent Tree | Respan API + MCP | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 33 | 73 | Respan API + MCP +40 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 50 | 89 | Respan API + MCP +39 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 67 | 66 | Agent Tree +1 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 49 | 66 | Respan API + MCP +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 30 | Agent Tree +30 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 60 | 85 | Respan API + MCP +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 63 | 59 | Agent Tree +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| Total | D 52.5/100 | B 65.7/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Agent Tree | Respan API + MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent framework | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mike Pollow (Digitalroots) | Respan (formerly Keywords AI) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://api.respan.ai/api |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots) | Apache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed source) |
| Tools exposed | none | 67 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-02-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-02-25 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | none | 270 npm/wk, 13k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |
How the scores have moved
Agent Tree
No score change since it was listed.
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.
Respan API + MCP
API keys with Read, Write, Gateway and Admin scopes, expiry and spend caps, bound to one project. 67 MCP tools load by default, with delete tools and no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations.
Before you call either
Agent Tree
- 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.
- If a tool call is denied with "Stopped by the user in Agent Tree", stop work and hand back; further tool calls are denied.
- Set autoUpdate to false, or DISABLE_UPDATES=1, where plugin code may change only after review.
- 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.
Respan API + MCP
- Create a key with only the Read scope for agents that analyse logs. New keys get Read, Write and Gateway by default
- Set
Respan-Enabled-Toolsto a short list such as list_traces,get_trace_tree,list_logs. All 67 tools load otherwise - Pass
filterstolist_logsrather than paging through everything. The default window is the last hour - Call
list_organizationsfirst when results look empty over OAuth. Every tool acts on the active organisation only - Append
.mdto any docs URL for clean Markdown
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Agent Tree or Respan API + MCP?
Respan API + MCP scores 65.7 (B) on agent readiness against Agent Tree's 52.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Agent Tree leads on payments & pricing.
Can an agent call Agent Tree and Respan API + MCP without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Agent Tree. Respan API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.respan.ai/api.
Are Agent Tree and Respan API + MCP open source?
Agent Tree is open source (MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots)). No open-source release is listed for Respan API + MCP.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/agent-tree-vs-respan.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/agent-tree.json·/api/v1/tools/respan.json - From a terminal
anchor compare agent-tree respan(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "agent-tree", "b": "respan"}at/mcp, no key