# Agent Zero vs Traycer

> Traycer scores 57 (C) to Agent Zero's 46 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-traycer
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-traycer.md (~5,150 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: 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)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Traycer scores 57 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 46 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Agent Zero: grade D, 46/100, rank #1168 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-zero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-zero.json
- Traycer: grade C, 57/100, rank #811 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/traycer.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/traycer.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 1500 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agent Zero (D)

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:
- Security & auth, 54 against 42
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30

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

### Traycer (C)

Good for: Teams who want several coding agents working together with shared context and boards.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 57

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Agent Zero loses 15 points for them

Watch for: Privacy Mode is opt-in for individuals; with it off, prompts may be logged


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: Agent Zero +30

- Agent Zero (60): Read with the self-hosted rule. No payment protocol in the source (0). Free under MIT with nothing to buy for the software, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines. It starts with one Docker command and no account. Model usage is billed by whichever provider the owner configures, or costs nothing with a local model. The vendor's site also describes a beta LLM API whose daily quota depends on staking its A0T token. That is separate from the software and not scored.
- Traycer (30): Scored on the paid option, Traycer's own inference subscription, whose price wasn't read (0 of 20). No protocol (0). Bring-your-own-agent use is free (20). Accounts for sync and teams weren't checked, half (10). 0 + 0 + 20 + 10 = 30.

### Security & auth: Agent Zero +12

- Agent Zero (54): Harness reading of the framework checklist, the one the Goose calibration dossier uses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. No usage telemetry was found in the source. An update check, on by default, posts the version and a 20-character SHA-256 hash of a random per-install id to api.agent-zero.ai. The Update Checker settings page says only that ID and the version are sent and has an off switch. Something still leaves the machine by default, so the partial is kept (22). The agent works inside a Docker container built on Kali Linux and runs as root there. Tool Access can block tools by project or profile and defaults to allow, host access through the A0 CLI is scoped by read, write and execute permissions, and no approval step was found before a shell command, a file deletion or an outgoing message. The web interface has no login until a username is set (10). Infection Check audits the agent's reasoning with a second model before each tool call and ships disabled. Scanners check plugins, skills and MCP servers before install. The channel allow-lists accept every sender when empty, and the email filter matches the claimed From address only, which the plugin README states (7). Chat logs, visible tool steps and Time Travel snapshots, with no per-call audit log. Per-process log files were removed in v2.5 (9). No SECURITY.md on 4 November, security.txt answered 404 on 12 October, and none of the eight CVEs published from 17 March to 22 October 2026 came from the vendor (VulDB, VulnCheck, MITRE and CISA assigned them). A security-review ledger in the repository records two findings, and the v2.12 notes name both fixes (6, a partial kept).
- Traycer (42): Harness reading. Code is processed in memory and not used for training, but Privacy Mode is opt-in for individuals, prompts may be logged with it off, and Sentry and PostHog 'may be enabled in release builds' (10 of 30). No approval model described in the README (8 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log found (5). SECURITY.md, CodeQL, Scorecard and secret scanning (14 of 20). 10 + 8 + 5 + 5 + 14 = 42.

### Reliability: Traycer +8

- Agent Zero (57): Read with the local-software lines, as software the owner runs. Installs from the `agent0ai/agent-zero` Docker image, an install script, or a desktop Launcher with builds for macOS, Linux and Windows on x86 and ARM64. The README says it runs wherever Docker runs. The image registry page was not read (17 of 20). The repository holds 245 files under tests/ on 4 November, and its only two workflows still publish Docker images and close inactive issues. The publish workflow runs no tests, so no public CI run shows them passing (5 of 25, a partial kept). 139 open issues and pull requests on 12 October 2026, per that check (GitHub's pages and API weren't read on 4 November). Open reports from September include a crash of `run_ui` after a failed memory consolidation (#1909), a browser worker that hangs the agent turn (#1923) and truncated backups (#1904), each with no reply or one, and a workflow closes anything inactive for 90 days (11 of 25). Release notes for v2.11, v2.12 and v2.13 carry a Breaking Changes section, but breaking changes ship in minor versions, so the numbering is not semver (9 of 15). v2.15, past 1.0 (15).
- Traycer (65): Local software. Builds for macOS, Linux and Windows, and package-manager publishing workflows (20). test.yml, CodeQL, OpenSSF Scorecard and secret scanning run on the repository; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). CHANGELOG.md (15). Host 1.5.3 (15). 20 + 15 + 0 + 15 + 15 = 65.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Traycer | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 65 | Traycer +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 65 | Traycer +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 65 | Traycer +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 42 | Agent Zero +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | Agent Zero +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 75 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 60 | Agent Zero +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -15 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **46 · D** | **57 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Traycer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | Traycer AI |
| 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 | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 19k stars | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Agent Zero

- -8.6 on 4 November 2026 (C to D): correction
- +0.3 on 28 October 2026: new evidence
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Traycer

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Agent Zero.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with seven releases from 12 August to 1 November 2026 and breaking changes listed in minor-release notes. The agent runs shell commands in its container with no approval step, the web interface has no login by default, and eight CVEs from the past year were published by third parties with no vendor advisory.

**Traycer.** An open-source app for running several coding agents together with shared context, agent-to-agent messaging and team boards, on every desktop OS. Privacy Mode is opt-in for individuals, and the README says Sentry and PostHog may be on in release builds.

## 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

### Traycer

1. Turn on Privacy Mode if you're an individual user and don't want prompts logged
2. CLI agents you configure send requests straight to their provider; Traycer's own inference goes through Traycer

## Questions

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

Traycer scores 57 (C) on agent readiness against Agent Zero's 46 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Agent Zero leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.

### Are Agent Zero and Traycer open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or Traycer

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- [Agent Zero vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-amp.md)
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- [Agent Zero vs Auggie CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-auggie.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