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

Agent Tree D

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

Respan API + MCP B

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

CategoryWeight this runAgent TreeRespan API + MCPEdge
Reliability16%203373Respan API + MCP +40
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25089Respan API + MCP +39
Agent ergonomics13%16.26766Agent Tree +1
Security & auth14%17.54966Respan API + MCP +17
Payments & pricing10%12.56030Agent Tree +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86085Respan API + MCP +25
Transparency & trust7%8.86359Agent Tree +4
Negative events≤150-2
TotalD 52.5/100B 65.7/100

Facts side by side

FactAgent TreeRespan API + MCP
KindAgent frameworkHTTP API
VendorMike Pollow (Digitalroots)Respan (formerly Keywords AI)
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.respan.ai/api
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Mike Pollow, Digitalroots)Apache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed source)
Tools exposednone67
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-292026-09-30
Terms last updatedcouldn't be read2026-02-25
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be read2026-02-25
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readyes
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readyes
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readyes
Popularitynone270 npm/wk, 13k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone2.5/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

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

  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.

Respan API + MCP

  1. Create a key with only the Read scope for agents that analyse logs. New keys get Read, Write and Gateway by default
  2. Set Respan-Enabled-Tools to a short list such as list_traces,get_trace_tree,list_logs. All 67 tools load otherwise
  3. Pass filters to list_logs rather than paging through everything. The default window is the last hour
  4. Call list_organizations first when results look empty over OAuth. Every tool acts on the active organisation only
  5. Append .md to 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.

Other comparisons with Agent Tree or Respan API + MCP

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