# Agent Zero vs Prime Agent

> Prime Agent scores 60.5 (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-prime-agent
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.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

Prime Agent scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on schema & documentation. 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
- Prime Agent: grade C, 60.5/100, rank #525 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prime-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.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:
- Schema & documentation, 64 against 42

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

### Prime Agent (C)

Good for: Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 57
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 64 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: No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Prime Agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 65 | Prime Agent +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 42 | Agent Zero +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 73 | Prime Agent +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 50 | Agent Zero +4 |
| 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 | 79 | Prime Agent +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 64 | Prime Agent +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **60.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Prime Agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | Prime Intellect |
| 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 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 19k stars | 22k stars |

## 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.

**Prime Agent.** Budgets for turns, tokens and time bound an autonomous run, and sessions survive a closed terminal through a supervising daemon. Model-written Python and shell commands run with the user's rights, with no approval step and no sandbox, and the Rust build on the main branch ships only as nightly betas.

## 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

### Prime Agent

1. Run it in a disposable clone, container or VM. It executes model-written Python and shell commands with the user's rights and asks nothing first
2. Set `PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine
3. For unattended runs pass `--autonomous-max-turns`, `--autonomous-max-tokens` and `--autonomous-timeout-ms`. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded
4. Headless use is `-p` with `--mode json` per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because `/login` is interactive
5. The `-t/--tools`, `-nt/--no-tools` and `-nbt/--no-builtin-tools` flags were removed and now fail as unknown options

## Questions

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

Prime Agent scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on schema & documentation.

### Are Agent Zero and Prime Agent open source?

Yes. Agent Zero is open source (MIT). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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