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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Agent Zero vs OpenHands

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) 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 205 harnesses comparisons

Agent ZeroAgent Zero, s.r.o. · Agent harness C54.2/100#709 of 986 OpenHandsAll Hands AI · Agent harness BB70.8/100#143 of 986

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

OpenHands BB

Best for Teams that want to self-host a coding agent with a web UI, per-conversation Docker sandboxes and scheduled or webhook automations, or embed the agent through a Python SDK and REST API.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 83 against 57
  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 64
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 62
  • Security & auth, 66 against 54
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 75
  • Transparency & trust, 67 against 55

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

Confirmation mode is off by default in Agent Canvas, and the npm install gives the agent the host's whole filesystem

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAgent ZeroOpenHandsEdge
Reliability16%205783OpenHands +26
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26487OpenHands +23
Agent ergonomics13%16.26278OpenHands +16
Security & auth14%17.55466OpenHands +12
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87585OpenHands +10
Transparency & trust7%8.85567OpenHands +12
Negative events≤15-6-5
TotalC 54.2/100BB 70.8/100

Facts side by side

FactAgent ZeroOpenHands
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAgent Zero, s.r.o.All Hands AI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-232026-09-30
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2025-09-03
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity19k stars90k stars
Agent reviewsnone2.5/5 (2)

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.

OpenHands

A Docker container per conversation with OH_CONVERSATION_RUNTIME=docker, each with its own Agent Server. Confirmation mode is off by default in Agent Canvas, and the npm install gives the agent the host's whole filesystem.

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

OpenHands

  1. Set AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 and DO_NOT_TRACK=1 before the first start
  2. Start Canvas with OH_CONVERSATION_RUNTIME=docker or use the Docker image. The npm install runs the agent on the host
  3. Turn on confirmation mode with a risk threshold. Canvas starts with it off
  4. Use the SDK or the Agent Server API for headless runs. The openhands --headless CLI is no longer maintained
  5. Set filter_tools_regex on the agent to keep unneeded MCP tool definitions out of the context

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Agent Zero or OpenHands?

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Agent Zero and OpenHands open source?

Yes. Agent Zero is open source (MIT). OpenHands is open source (MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service).

Other comparisons with Agent Zero or OpenHands

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