# agents-tree vs Baserun (slim)

> agents-tree scores 64.3 (B) to Baserun's 7.3 (F) for agent tracing. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agents-tree-vs-baserun.md (~4,450 tokens) · this version ~2,430 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agents-tree-vs-baserun.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agents-tree-vs-baserun
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-01
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Baserun shut down on 2024-09-30. agents-tree scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Baserun's 7.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent tracing.

- agents-tree: B 64.3, rank #401 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agents-tree.min.md
- Baserun: F 7.3, rank retired, not ranked · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baserun.min.md
- agents-tree, good for Seeing every coding-agent session and its sub-agents as one tree in a terminal Ahead on Reliability, 60 against 0; Schema & documentation, 64 against 15; Agent ergonomics, 73 against 5; Security & auth, 66 against 5; Payments & pricing, 60 against 0; Maintenance & community, 63 against 0; Transparency & trust, 62 against 36. Also Still running. Baserun has shut down; No key needed to call it; Open source.
- Baserun, good for Nothing new. It shut down on 2024-09-30. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | agents-tree | Baserun |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 60 | 0 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 64 | 15 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 5 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 66 | 5 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 0 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 63 | 0 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 62 | 36 |

| Fact (where they differ) | agents-tree | Baserun |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Karel Blavka | Baserun |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://app.baserun.ai` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Karel Blavka) | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2024-06-26 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 115 npm/wk, 209 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 1/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Agent ergonomics, agents-tree +68: agents-tree 73 (Framework reading, how much an agent has to carry. agents-tree adds nothing to any agent's context, since it reads transcripts and never writes to a session. Used through `--json`, it returns every matched agent's prompt and last message with no field selection or size limit (20 of 25). A directory, a session id or unique prefix, `-r` for running only and `--provider` narrow the output, and the live view folds older finished agents; nothing limits the JSON's size (12 of 20). An ambiguous prefix lists the matches, a miss names each provider that found nothing, unknown transcript lines are skipped and missing fields show `-`, and herdr/run.sh names the Python it needs (14 of 20). Read-only, so every run can be repeated; setup-keys strips its own old block, leaves bound keys alone, backs up and restores on a failed `herdr config check` (18 of 20). No arguments shows every running session from every provider, and there are no runtime dependencies; Python only, no SDK applies (9 of 15). 73 in all.); Baserun 5 (Nothing can be called. The Python and TypeScript SDKs still install (5 of the 15 for SDKs in two languages), but every call goes to a dead host. No sizing, pagination, error or retry behaviour to assess (0).)
- Maintenance & community, agents-tree +63: agents-tree 63 (1.2.0 on PyPI on 8 October 2026, 24 days before the check, and a commit on main on 11 October (30). Five PyPI releases between 7 and 8 October 2026 (20). Issue and pull-request replies couldn't be read, as github.com was unreachable. The bare clone shows two Dependabot branches of 28 October unmerged (5 of 25). Not an MCP server and in no official directory; herdr's plugin marketplace couldn't be read (0). No runtime dependencies, a lock file, CI on five Python versions and Dependabot for the workflow actions, with its two updates unmerged (8 of 10). 63 in all.); Baserun 0 (Last releases were PyPI 2.0.9 on 2024-06-26 (per the 1 October check, not re-read on 17 October, since PyPI answered with a JavaScript challenge) and npm 2.1.3, still the latest on 17 October, both more than two years old (0). No releases in the last 90 days (0). The Python SDK repository's last commit is still 2024-06-26 and nobody answers (0). SDKs aren't current (0). No CI beyond a pre-commit workflow (0).)
- Security & auth, agents-tree +61: agents-tree 66 (Harness reading of the framework checklist, as agent-tree and superpowers were read. 30 for what leaves the machine and credentials, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. No credentials, no network code and no runtime dependencies; PyPI releases are built by trusted publishing with no stored token and wait for a maintainer to approve the pypi environment. It reads every transcript of four agent CLIs, prompts included, and the herdr plugin runs the repository's bundled source rather than a PyPI release (26). Read-only by design. SQLite files are opened with mode=ro, nothing is written to an agent's files, and the only writes are a pane mark (directory 0700, file 0600, O_NOFOLLOW) and herdr's config block with a backup and check. It can't act on an agent (17). Control characters and escape sequences are stripped from every transcript field before a view, and the help warns that output run inside an agent lands in its context, but `--json` passes prompts and last messages unredacted with no note that they are untrusted (10). It keeps no state or log of its own. The detail view names each transcript's path, and herdr's config keeps a backup (8). No SECURITY.md, no security.txt and no advisories found; GitHub's security page couldn't be read. CI pins third-party actions to commit SHAs with Dependabot on them (5). 66 in all.); Baserun 5 (The old credential model was one project API key read from `BASERUN_API_KEY` (no longer accepted anywhere, 0). No security policy, security.txt or certification found (0). The risk that remains is the SDK default. `baserun` on PyPI sends trace data to https://app.baserun.ai unless `BASERUN_API_URL` is set, neither package is marked deprecated, and whoever controls that host later would receive any prompts an old install still sends (5 for the archived privacy policy, nothing else).)
- Reliability, agents-tree +60: agents-tree 60 (Local-package reading, as for agent-tree, superpowers and tokeneconomizer. Installs from PyPI with `uv tool install agents-tree` or pipx, with Python 3.10 or later and POSIX stated in pyproject.toml and Linux and macOS in the herdr manifest (20). .github/workflows/test.yaml runs pylint, pyright, 173 pytest tests, a test run and a package build on Python 3.10 to 3.14 on every push and pull request. Whether the runs pass wasn't checked, as github.com couldn't be read (15 of 25). Issues couldn't be read for the same reason (5 of 25, unchecked). Semver tags and Conventional Commit messages, but no changelog, and the README's caveat that transcript formats may change is the only note on breakage; the switch to reading every provider by default came with 1.0.0 (5 of 15). Version 1.2.0 (15). 60 in all.); Baserun 0 (Shut down, so there's nothing left to be reliable. No status page (0) and no incident history (0). api.baserun.ai doesn't resolve in DNS and app.baserun.ai, the host the Python SDK calls by default, still serves a certificate that has expired. No rate limits, retry guidance or SLA survive (0). Nothing is generally available (0).)
- Payments & pricing, agents-tree +60: agents-tree 60 (Self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0). Free under MIT with nothing to buy (20). No card or account (20). A person installs it from PyPI with one command and no sign-up (20). 60 in all.); Baserun 0 (No longer sold (0 on every line). There's no way to buy, try or get a key, and no x402 or other machine payment (0).)
- Schema & documentation, agents-tree +49: agents-tree 64 (Framework reading, docs a model can follow, as agent-tree was read. `--json` writes one document with `schema_version` 1 and a fixed set of session, agent and detail fields, and model.py types them as dataclasses, but no JSON Schema or field reference is published (14 of 25). README, AGENTS.md and docs/demo are Markdown in the repository; no llms.txt (10). The README says what it shows and reads, has a caveats section per provider (context window inference, internal formats, how running sessions are found), and the command's help says not to run it inside an agent (15 of 20). argparse with choices for --provider and --color, positive-number checks for --window and --interval, and --json refused with --watch (10 of 15). Usage examples for every flag, key and column tables, and errors as messages on stderr with exit code 1, with few error outputs documented (10 of 15). Semver tags and a schema version, no changelog (5 of 15). 64 in all.); Baserun 15 (Scored on what's left. docs.baserun.ai still serves an llms.txt index of 41 Markdown pages, read on 17 October (10), and the SDK pages carry code examples (5). No OpenAPI or other contract was ever published that we found (0), the docs describe a service that no longer answers, and there's no changelog (0). The llms.txt still links a changelog at www.baserun.ai, which fails the TLS handshake.)