# Agent Zero vs Qoder CLI

> Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (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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- 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)
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- Updated: 2026-10-18

Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on reliability and payments & pricing. 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
- Qoder CLI: grade C, 59.3/100, rank #609 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qoder-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qoder-cli.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 51
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35

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

### Qoder CLI (C)

Good for: Developers already on Qoder who want the same agent in a terminal, in CI through a PAT, in Zed through ACP, or embedded through the Agent SDK.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 64
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 55

Watch for: No local sandbox is documented, and `auto` mode approves read-only tools on any path


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Qoder CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 51 | Agent Zero +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 81 | Qoder CLI +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 80 | Qoder CLI +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 55 | Qoder CLI +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | Agent Zero +25 |
| 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 | 64 | Qoder CLI +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **59.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Qoder CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | Qoder (BRIGHT ZENITH PRIVATE LIMITED) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under the Qoder Terms of Service (BRIGHT ZENITH PRIVATE LIMITED, last updated 29 April 2026). No source is published, and the Agent SDK's LICENSE file points to the same terms |
| 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 |  |
| 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 | 5k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (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.

**Qoder CLI.** A closed-source terminal agent with a documented headless mode, an ACP server, typed TypeScript and Python SDKs and near-daily releases. Permission rules and modes are detailed, but no local sandbox is documented, usage statistics are on by default, and security fixes appear only as one-line release notes with no advisories or disclosure policy.

## 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

### Qoder CLI

1. Set `QODER_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN` in CI. The browser sign-in can't complete in a headless run
2. Pass `--permission-mode` with `--allowed-tools` in headless runs. Every ask is denied, and `--yolo` removes all checks
3. Set `--max-turns` on unattended runs, and branch on exit codes 41 (authentication) and 53 (turn limit)
4. Set `privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled` and `aiCodeStatistics.enabled` to false in ~/.qoder/settings.json if usage data must stay local
5. Don't pass `--model lite`. The Lite tier was removed on 18 September 2026 and headless requests naming it fail

## Questions

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

Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 54.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

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

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or Qoder 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 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)
- [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 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 Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Claude Code vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Cline vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Crush vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-qoder-cli.md)
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- [Devin vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-qoder-cli.md)
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- [Kimi Code CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kimi-code-cli-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Kiro CLI vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-qoder-cli.md)
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- [Muse Code vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-code-vs-qoder-cli.md)
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- [OpenHands vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-qoder-cli.md)
- [Prime Agent vs Qoder CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/prime-agent-vs-qoder-cli.md)
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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp