# Agent Zero vs Devin

> Devin scores 55.7 (C) to Agent Zero's 54.2 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-devin
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-devin.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-devin.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-devin.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-12

Devin scores 55.7 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on reliability, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do agent harnesses.

- Agent Zero: grade C, 54.2/100, rank #709 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-zero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-zero.json
- Devin: grade C, 55.7/100, rank #667 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/devin.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/devin.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 205 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agent Zero (C)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an agent with its own Linux machine, reachable from Telegram, WhatsApp or email, with scheduled tasks and editable memory.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 57 against 30
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 63

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

Watch for: No approval step before shell commands, file changes or outgoing messages. Tool Access defaults to allow

### Devin (C)

Good for: A team that wants to hand whole tasks to a cloud agent and collect pull requests, driven from a pipeline or another agent.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 64
- Security & auth, 72 against 54
- Transparency & trust, 69 against 55

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Agent Zero loses 6 points for them

Watch for: www.devinstatus.com lists three critical incidents (22 July, 13 August, 24 September 2026) and six major ones on the cloud agent or web app since 10 July 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Devin | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 30 | Agent Zero +27 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 80 | Devin +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 62 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 72 | Devin +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | Agent Zero +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 63 | Agent Zero +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 69 | Devin +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **55.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Devin |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | Cognition AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.devin.ai/mcp` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Cognition's Platform Terms of Service |
| Tools exposed | none | 13 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-03-09 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 19k stars | none |

## Verdicts

**Agent Zero.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with nine releases in the 90 days to 12 October 2026 and breaking changes listed in the release notes. The agent runs shell commands in its container with no approval step, the web interface has no login by default, and five CVEs from the past year have no published GitHub advisory.

**Devin.** The v3 API is well specified, with a public OpenAPI 3.1 file covering 239 operations, problem+json errors, cursor pagination and service-user keys tied to roles. The status page records three critical and several major incidents on the cloud agent between 22 July and 24 September 2026, and no rate limit figures or retry guidance were found in the reviewed documentation.

## Before you call either

### Agent Zero

1. Set a UI login and password in Settings before publishing the port or opening a tunnel. The default has none
2. Fill `allowed_users`, `allowed_numbers` or `sender_whitelist` before enabling a channel. An empty list accepts every sender
3. Enable the Infection Check plugin when the agent reads mail, web pages or MCP results. It ships disabled
4. Run v2.12 or later. It fixes a Telegram webhook authentication bypass and a WhatsApp media path traversal
5. Call `POST /api_message` with the `X-API-KEY` header. The token changes when the UI login or password changes

### Devin

1. Use a `cog_` service-user key with the Member role. Legacy `apk_` keys fail against v3 and the MCP server with 401 or 403
2. Set `max_acu_limit` on every session you create. Usage is metered by the work done and has no published unit rate
3. Session creation is not idempotent in v3. After a timeout, list sessions by tag before creating again
4. Enterprise keys and personal access tokens must send `X-Org-Id` to the MCP server. Organisation-scoped keys resolve it automatically
5. Create scheduled work as an automation. POST to the schedules endpoint returns 403 for migrated organisations since 24 September 2026

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agent Zero or Devin?

Devin scores 55.7 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on reliability, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Are Agent Zero and Devin open source?

Agent Zero is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Devin.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or Devin

- [Agent Zero vs Aider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-aider.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-amp.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Antigravity CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-antigravity-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Claude Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-claude-code.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cline.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-goose.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-opencode.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openhands.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Aider vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-devin.md)
- [Amp vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-devin.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-devin.md)
- [Claude Code vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-devin.md)
- [Cline vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-devin.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-devin.md)
- [Devin vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Devin vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [Devin vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Devin vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Devin vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-goose.md)
- [Devin vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Devin vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Devin vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Devin vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-opencode.md)
- [Devin vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-openhands.md)
- [Devin vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Devin vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Devin vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-paperclip.md)