# Amp vs HarnessRouter

> Amp scores 57.1 (C) to HarnessRouter's 53.2 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harnessrouter.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

Amp scores 57.1 (C) on agent readiness against HarnessRouter's 53.2 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. HarnessRouter leads on schema & documentation. Both do agent harnesses.

- Amp: grade C, 57.1/100, rank #686 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amp.json
- HarnessRouter: grade D, 53.2/100, rank #796 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harnessrouter.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harnessrouter.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 331 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Amp (C)

Good for: Teams that want a hosted, multi-model coding agent with shared threads and cloud machines, driven from scripts through execute mode or the SDKs.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 72
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 72

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where HarnessRouter loses 5 points for them

Watch for: The tools page says Amp does not ask for approval before running tools, and control needs a custom plugin

### HarnessRouter (D)

Good for: A product team that wants to run Codex, Claude Code, Hermes or 23 other harnesses server-side behind one task, session and file contract, and switch between them by changing an ID.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 72

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Open source

Watch for: No status page found (status.harnessrouter.ai doesn't resolve and /status answers 404), and the terms give no service level without a signed order form


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amp | HarnessRouter | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 31 | 35 | HarnessRouter +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 83 | HarnessRouter +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 73 | HarnessRouter +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 58 | HarnessRouter +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 25 | Amp +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 72 | Amp +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 72 | Amp +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **57.1 · C** | **53.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amp | HarnessRouter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Amp Frontier Corporation | HarnessRouter (Lumentree Corporation) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.harnessrouter.ai` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, under the Amp licence terms (Amp Frontier Corporation). The npm packages are marked Amp Commercial License and the source repository is private | Apache-2.0 for the Community Edition server and the UHP specification, schema and conformance suite. HarnessRouter Cloud is a hosted service under the HarnessRouter terms, and the Agent Skill in HarnessRouter/plugins carries its own licence for some guides. |
| Tools exposed | none | 0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no date given |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-10 |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 41k npm/wk | 3.1k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Amp.** Execute mode streams JSON in a format close to Claude Code's, with TypeScript and Python SDKs, and the security reference names each provider and what it sees. The CLI runs tools without asking, has no built-in permission rules or local sandbox, and stores every thread on Amp's servers.

**HarnessRouter.** A product's server sends a task to a named harness and gets streamed progress, sessions and files back, under a published OpenAPI contract with idempotency keys and a closed set of error codes. No status page or request rate limit was found, running a task needs card-funded credit, and access-control flaws were fixed on 6 and 7 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### Amp

1. Run unattended jobs in a container or VM. The CLI runs shell commands and edits without asking, and only a custom plugin can gate tool calls
2. Set `AMP_API_KEY` to an access token starting `sgamp_` from Settings. The CLI rejects the short-lived token that `amp login` stores
3. Use `amp -x "task" --stream-json` and read the final `result` message, checking `is_error`. Exit codes are not documented
4. Set `AMP_SKIP_UPDATE_CHECK=1` or `amp.updates.mode` to `disabled` in CI. Updates install automatically by default
5. Treat the block headed INSTRUCTIONS FOR LLMs in ampcode.com page source as vendor copy, and take facts from the docs Markdown

### HarnessRouter

1. Name the harness yourself. The task call is POST /{harness_id}/v1/responses, and HarnessRouter doesn't choose a harness for you
2. Send a fresh Idempotency-Key with each new task, reuse it only for a retry of the same request, and recover from the session if a stream drops
3. Call cancel to stop work. Closing the SSE connection leaves the agent running and billing
4. Keep the Workspace API key on the server. The docs forbid calling the API from a browser with it
5. Check each tool's enforcement in GET /v1/bases. On bases marked instruction, disabled_tools is a request to the model, not a block

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Amp or HarnessRouter?

Amp scores 57.1 (C) on agent readiness against HarnessRouter's 53.2 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. HarnessRouter leads on schema & documentation.

### Are Amp and HarnessRouter open source?

No open-source release is listed for Amp. HarnessRouter is open source (Apache-2.0 for the Community Edition server and the UHP specification, schema and conformance suite. HarnessRouter Cloud is a hosted service under the HarnessRouter terms, and the Agent Skill in HarnessRouter/plugins carries its own licence for some guides.).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Amp or HarnessRouter

- [Agent Zero vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-amp.md)
- [Agent Zero vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Aider vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-amp.md)
- [Aider vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Amp vs Antigravity CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-antigravity-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Claude Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-claude-code.md)
- [Amp vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cline.md)
- [Amp vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-devin.md)
- [Amp vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [Amp vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Amp vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Amp vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-goose.md)
- [Amp vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Amp vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Amp vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-opencode.md)
- [Amp vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-openhands.md)
- [Amp vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Amp vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Amp vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Claude Code vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Cline vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Devin vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Droid CLI vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Pi vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [goose vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-muse-code.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-opencode.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-openhands.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Amp vs CLI Manager](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cli-manager.md)
- [Amp vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Amp vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-paperclip.md)
- [Amp vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-parallax-agents.md)
- [CLI Manager vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Harness vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-paperclip.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-parallax-agents.md)

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