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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Agent Zero vs MiniMax Code

MiniMax Code scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 752 harnesses comparisons

Agent ZeroAgent Zero, s.r.o. · Agent harness C54.2/100#784 of 1175 MiniMax CodeMiniMax · Agent harness B67.5/100#277 of 1175

Which one, for what

Agent Zero C

Best 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.

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

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

MiniMax Code B

Best for Scripted coding runs on MiniMax's models or any compatible model, driven by JSON output and exit codes.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 63 against 57
  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 64
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 62
  • Transparency & trust, 61 against 55

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where Agent Zero loses 6 points for them

Watch for

Pre-1.0 and labelled a source preview, with npm at 0.6.12 and the public source at 0.6.5

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAgent ZeroMiniMax CodeEdge
Reliability16%205763MiniMax Code +6
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26481MiniMax Code +17
Agent ergonomics13%16.26275MiniMax Code +13
Security & auth14%17.55457MiniMax Code +3
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87577MiniMax Code +2
Transparency & trust7%8.85561MiniMax Code +6
Negative events≤15-60
TotalC 54.2/100B 67.5/100

Facts side by side

FactAgent ZeroMiniMax Code
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAgent Zero, s.r.o.MiniMax
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT for first-party code, with the bundled sandbox runtime under Apache-2.0. The desktop app's source isn't published
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-232026-10-15
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-01-19
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-01-19
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity19k stars2k stars, 6.8k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (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.

MiniMax Code

An MIT-licensed terminal coding agent with a headless mode that returns versioned JSON, documented exit codes and an ACP server, and telemetry off by default. It's pre-1.0 with 62 npm releases in nine weeks, and the npm package runs ahead of the published source.

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

MiniMax Code

  1. Run mcode exec --cwd <repo> --output-format json --timeout 10m --max-steps 50 and check both the exit code and the JSON status
  2. Keep --permission full and off for a container or throwaway workspace. The default smart fails when it would need a person
  3. Set MCODE_PROVIDER_API_KEY and add a provider for BYOK. M Plan models need a browser sign-in with mcode login --region global
  4. Set MINIMAX_DATA_DIR per CI runner. Keys and sessions live in ~/.minimax by default
  5. Pin a version. npm published 62 releases in nine weeks and the public source trails it

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Agent Zero or MiniMax Code?

MiniMax Code scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Agent Zero and MiniMax Code open source?

Yes. Agent Zero is open source (MIT). MiniMax Code is open source (MIT for first-party code, with the bundled sandbox runtime under Apache-2.0. The desktop app's source isn't published).

Other comparisons with Agent Zero or MiniMax Code

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