# Amp vs mini-swe-agent

> Amp and mini-swe-agent score within a point of each other for agent harnesses, 57.1 and 56.7 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

Amp and mini-swe-agent score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.1 (C) and 56.7 (C). mini-swe-agent leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Amp: grade C, 57.1/100, rank #691 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amp.json
- mini-swe-agent: grade C, 56.7/100, rank #698 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.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

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 72 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 51

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where mini-swe-agent loses 4 points for them

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

### mini-swe-agent (C)

Good for: Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 31
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: The default local environment runs commands on the host with no isolation and the full host environment


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amp | mini-swe-agent | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 31 | 70 | mini-swe-agent +39 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 58 | Amp +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 69 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 56 | Amp +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 60 | mini-swe-agent +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 49 | Amp +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 51 | Amp +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **57.1 · C** | **56.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amp | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Amp Frontier Corporation | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| 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 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-07-23 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-10 | no document linked |
| 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 | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (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.

**mini-swe-agent.** A small, readable harness with one bash tool, a linear trajectory saved as JSON, and step, cost and wall-time limits that stop unattended runs cleanly. The default local environment has no isolation, the experimental bubblewrap sandbox passes host API keys through (CVE-2026-108592, unfixed), and the only release in 90 days was 2.4.6 on 23 July 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

### mini-swe-agent

1. Run with `-y --exit-immediately` for unattended use. Without `--exit-immediately` it waits for input when the agent finishes
2. Set `MSWEA_CONFIGURED=true` and `MSWEA_MODEL_NAME` first, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt
3. Read `info.exit_status` in the `-o` trajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally
4. For untrusted repositories use `-c mini.yaml -c environment.environment_class=docker -c environment.image=<image>`. The local and bubblewrap environments both expose host variables
5. Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Amp or mini-swe-agent?

Amp and mini-swe-agent score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 57.1 (C) and 56.7 (C). mini-swe-agent leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Are Amp and mini-swe-agent open source?

No open-source release is listed for Amp. mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Amp or mini-swe-agent

- [Agent Zero vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-amp.md)
- [Agent Zero vs mini-swe-agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-mini-swe-agent.md)
- [Aider vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-amp.md)
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