# Agent Zero vs mini-swe-agent

> mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) to Agent Zero's 54.2 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. 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
- mini-swe-agent: grade C, 56.7/100, rank #698 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.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:
- Schema & documentation, 64 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 49

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

### mini-swe-agent (C)

Good for: Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 57
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 62

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

Watch for: The default local environment runs commands on the host with no isolation and the full host environment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | mini-swe-agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 70 | mini-swe-agent +13 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 58 | Agent Zero +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 69 | mini-swe-agent +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 56 | mini-swe-agent +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 49 | Agent Zero +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 51 | Agent Zero +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **56.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-07-23 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| 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 | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (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.

**mini-swe-agent.** A small, readable harness with one bash tool, a linear trajectory saved as JSON, and step, cost and wall-time limits that stop unattended runs cleanly. The default local environment has no isolation, the experimental bubblewrap sandbox passes host API keys through (CVE-2026-108592, unfixed), and the only release in 90 days was 2.4.6 on 23 July 2026.

## 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

### mini-swe-agent

1. Run with `-y --exit-immediately` for unattended use. Without `--exit-immediately` it waits for input when the agent finishes
2. Set `MSWEA_CONFIGURED=true` and `MSWEA_MODEL_NAME` first, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt
3. Read `info.exit_status` in the `-o` trajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally
4. For untrusted repositories use `-c mini.yaml -c environment.environment_class=docker -c environment.image=<image>`. The local and bubblewrap environments both expose host variables
5. Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agent Zero or mini-swe-agent?

mini-swe-agent scores 56.7 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

### Are Agent Zero and mini-swe-agent open source?

Yes. Agent Zero is open source (MIT). mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or mini-swe-agent

- [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 Junie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-junie.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)
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- [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)
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- [Agent Zero vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-qoder-cli.md)
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- [Agent Zero vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-warp.md)
- [Aider vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Amp vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
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- [Claude Code vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
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- [Junie CLI vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
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- [mini-swe-agent vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-muse-code.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [mini-swe-agent vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-opencode.md)
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- [mini-swe-agent vs Rovo Dev CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-rovo-dev-cli.md)
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