# Agent Zero vs Droid CLI

> Droid CLI scores 59.1 (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-droid-cli
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-droid-cli.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-droid-cli.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-droid-cli.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

Droid CLI scores 59.1 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on reliability and payments & pricing. 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
- Droid CLI: grade C, 59.1/100, rank #573 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/droid-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/droid-cli.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 49
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 10

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

### Droid CLI (C)

Good for: Teams that want a terminal coding agent with tiered autonomy, command rules and an optional sandbox, and that will pay for a Factory plan.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 79 against 64
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 62
- Security & auth, 63 against 54
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 55

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Agent Zero loses 6 points for them

Watch for: No free tier or trial was found. Plans start at $20 a month and included usage is stated only as rolling rate limits without numbers


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Droid CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 49 | Agent Zero +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 79 | Droid CLI +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 72 | Droid CLI +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 63 | Droid CLI +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 10 | Agent Zero +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 79 | Droid CLI +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 64 | Droid CLI +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **59.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Droid CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | Factory |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under Factory's Terms and Conditions. The `droid` npm package is marked `UNLICENSED` and the public repository holds documentation only. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-07-14 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-20 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| 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 | 49 stars, 7.8k npm/wk |

## 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.

**Droid CLI.** `droid exec` is read-only unless `--auto` raises the autonomy level, with command rules, an optional kernel-enforced sandbox, JSON output and documented exit codes. No free tier, status page or security.txt was found, the source is closed, and usage metrics go to Factory by default.

## 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

### Droid CLI

1. Set `FACTORY_API_KEY` (starts `fk-`) from the API keys page in Factory settings for headless runs. Interactive use signs in through a browser
2. Start with `droid exec` and no flags for analysis. Add `--auto low` for edits and `--auto medium` for installs, tests and local commits
3. Use `--output-format json` and read `is_error`, `num_turns` and `session_id`. Treat a non-zero exit code as failure
4. Set `sandbox.enabled` to true before running on untrusted code. In `droid exec` a sandbox violation is denied without a prompt
5. Pin the version in CI with `npm install -g droid@<version>`, or set `FACTORY_DROID_AUTO_UPDATE_ENABLED=false` on standalone installs, which update themselves

## Questions

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

Droid CLI scores 59.1 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Are Agent Zero and Droid CLI open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or Droid CLI

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