# Agent Zero vs Junie CLI

> Agent Zero scores 54.2 (C) to Junie CLI's 53.2 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-junie
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-junie.md (~3,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-junie.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-junie.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-18

Agent Zero scores 54.2 (C) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 53.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Agent Zero: grade C, 54.2/100, rank #775 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-zero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-zero.json
- Junie CLI: grade D, 53.2/100, rank #804 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/junie.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/junie.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 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 45
- Agent ergonomics, 62 against 55
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 42

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

### Junie CLI (D)

Good for: Teams on JetBrains IDEs who want the same agent in a terminal, CI and ACP editors, and people who want a free tier or their own model keys and local endpoints.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 55

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: One-shot, piped, ACP and Gateway runs trust the project by design and load its MCP servers, hooks, agents and skills without a prompt


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Junie CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 45 | Agent Zero +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 62 | Agent Zero +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 55 | Agent Zero +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 56 | Junie CLI +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 42 | Agent Zero +18 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 72 | Agent Zero +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 78 | Junie CLI +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **53.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Junie CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | JetBrains |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, JetBrains s.r.o., all rights reserved, under the JetBrains AI Terms of Service. The GitHub repository holds the README, release binaries and the issue tracker, not source |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-12 |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 19k stars | 487 stars, 3.2k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Junie CLI.** Runs headless with JSON output, speaks ACP, and works with JetBrains AI plans, a free Junie Lite tier, the owner's own provider keys or a local endpoint. Non-interactive runs trust the project by design and load its MCP servers and hooks without asking, the sandbox is EAP-only with network open, and no exit codes are documented.

## 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

### Junie CLI

1. Run headless only in repositories you trust. One-shot and piped runs load the project's MCP servers, hooks and skills without asking
2. Set `JUNIE_API_KEY` (from junie.jetbrains.com/cli) or a provider key such as `JUNIE_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` in CI. The default sign-in opens a browser
3. Add `--output-format json` or `--json-output-file` to parse results. Check the output, since exit codes aren't documented
4. Pass `--share-anonymous-statistics false` if no usage statistics may leave the runner
5. Pin a build with `--use-version` and `--skip-update-check`. The CLI updates itself on start by default

## Questions

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

Agent Zero scores 54.2 (C) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 53.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on transparency & trust.

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

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or Junie 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 Auggie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-auggie.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 Crush](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-crush.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-devin.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 Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harness2.md)
- [Agent Zero vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Jules](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-jules.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kimi Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kimi-code-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Mistral Vibe CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-mistral-vibe-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-muse-code.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 Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-warp.md)
- [Aider vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-junie.md)
- [Amp vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-junie.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-junie.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-junie.md)
- [Claude Code vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-junie.md)
- [Cline vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-junie.md)
- [Crush vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-junie.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-junie.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-junie.md)
- [Devin vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-junie.md)
- [Droid CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-junie.md)
- [Pi vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-junie.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-junie.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-junie.md)
- [goose vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-junie.md)
- [Harness² vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-junie.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-junie.md)
- [Jules vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jules-vs-junie.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Kimi Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-kimi-code-cli.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Junie CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Mistral Vibe CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-mistral-vibe-cli.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Junie CLI vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Junie CLI vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-opencode.md)
- [Junie CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-openhands.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-warp.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-junie.md)
- [Harness vs Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-junie.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-paperclip.md)
- [Junie CLI vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-parallax-agents.md)

---

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