Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

AXLR vs Devin

AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1000 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

AXLR BB

Best for A program or bot that needs one governed execution at a time, with a policy, a budget, a sandbox profile and correlation ids it sets itself and a result object it reads back, on a machine it controls, with the model on OpenRouter, a local server or a native Anthropic or OpenAI key.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 30
  • Agent ergonomics, 83 against 62
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 63

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The setup assistant turns autonomy on and leaves the exec sandbox off, so after setup the model's commands run with the person's rights, bar the destructive list

Devin C

Best for A team that wants to hand whole tasks to a cloud agent and collect pull requests, driven from a pipeline or another agent.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 72 against 62
  • Transparency & trust, 70 against 55

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

www.devinstatus.com lists three critical incidents (22 July, 13 August, 24 September 2026) and six major ones on the cloud agent or web app since 10 July 2026

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reliability AXLR +40

AXLR 70

Read as a local package, as claude-code, goose, opencode and openhands were. Release archives for Linux, macOS and Windows on amd64 and arm64 with a .sha256 beside each, a GHCR image, an OCI Helm chart and source builds with Go 1.26, all stated in the docs; no Homebrew, npm or apt route (20). CI on main runs vet, race tests and a coverage gate above 80 per cent for both modules, with the sandbox tests required under bubblewrap, and the last ten runs on main to 1 November 2026 all passed; the release workflow tests on six native runners (25). 10 open issues, all opened by the founder on 19 and 21 October 2026 as trackers for service work (work modes, plugins, the sandbox setting, cost limits), none from an outside user and none a crash report, 0 open pull requests and about 100 merged; with 0 stars there is nobody else to report, so the handling of outside reports is untested (20). Tags are semver 0.x and the docs date each behaviour change inline ("until 14 October 2026…"), but the 21 releases have empty notes, there is no CHANGELOG.md, and the product contract records one retirement (the seven 1.0 skill definitions on 5 October 2026) without a notice period (5). Pre-1.0, which the README calls an evolving project (0). 20+25+20+5+0 = 70.

Devin 30

Hosted reading. Status page at www.devinstatus.com with 14 components and incident history (20). In the 90 days to 8 October 2026 it lists three critical incidents (22 July, 43 minutes of platform-wide queuing, 13 August, Devin Cloud unavailable for 2 hours 40 minutes, 24 September, the web app down for 2 hours) and six major ones on session start-up, so several majors (0). 429 is a documented response, but no rate limit figures were found (0). No Retry-After or backoff guidance found, and v3 session creation has no idempotency key, although the legacy v1 API had one (0). The platform terms supply the service as is with no service level, and enterprise terms weren't read (0). The v3 API is the current, recommended surface, with 44 of 239 operations marked beta under /v3beta1 (10).

Payments & pricing AXLR +40

AXLR 60

No payment protocol (0). Free and Apache-2.0 with nothing to buy, so 20, 20 and 20 on the last three lines by the self-hosted rule, since the docs say what you pay your model provider, the free route needs no card, and it runs local models with no signup at all, the JSON worker without any model. 0+20+20+20 = 60.

Devin 20

Published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices are public, $20, $200 and $40 a seat with an $80 team minimum, but usage past the quota is billed at an unpublished rate (10). A Free plan exists. The pricing page lists cloud agents from Pro upward, and we couldn't confirm API use on Free or whether a card is needed (10). A person signs up in a browser and provisions the service user in settings (0).

Agent ergonomics AXLR +21

AXLR 83

Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what a program driving it has to supply. Six local tools plus the host's bookkeeping tools; work modes and an execution policy hide the tools a run may not use, axlr_catalog searches the catalog instead of loading it, forged tools keep the request prefix for the prompt cache, and a context cap of 75,000 prompt tokens opens a successor session (20). local_read, local_search and local_list page with offset, next_offset and max_bytes; StreamEvents takes after, max_events (1 to 256) and wait_ms; a budget per execution in seconds, requests, tool calls and dollars; 32 tool calls a turn and max_session_usd (20). The --exec run ends in one result line with a status, the pending call, every call's outcome and the usage, and exits 0, 3 or 1; service errors carry codes an agent can act on; a budget stop says which limit (budget: requests 20 reached) and leaves the session resumable (16). Idempotency-Key on every turn, approval and direct call with cross-transport replay, expected_revision on decisions, expected_sha256 on worker writes, and an interrupted effectful call left uncertain for an operator rather than retried (19). One command runs a task, but the first launch needs an OpenRouter key or a local server, the service needs a CA, a principals file and remote KMP and MADE before a first session, and the only SDK is the Go library (8). 20+20+16+19+8 = 83.

Devin 62

API and MCP reading. The MCP server documents 13 tools, several of them consolidated manage tools, and list endpoints take first to size a page (17). Cursor pagination on every v3 list endpoint and filters on session search by tag, playbook, origin, user and time (18). problem+json with error_code, field-level errors on 422 and a 400 that lists valid platform names, but no published code list (15). No idempotency key on v3 session creation. max_acu_limit caps what a session can spend, and the MCP tool annotations couldn't be read without a key (4). Only prompt is required to start a session. No official SDK found, only a Terraform provider (8).

Maintenance & community AXLR +16

AXLR 79

v0.15.0 on 2026-10-25, with commits on main to 2026-11-01 (30). 21 releases between 4 and 25 October 2026 (20). One maintainer (368 of 399 commits, the rest by two agent accounts), 10 open issues that are his own trackers with no comments, about 100 merged pull requests and no outside report to measure a reply against (15). Not in the MCP registry; the Go module and a proto to generate clients from are the only client code, beside the GHCR image and Helm chart (5). Go 1.26 toolchain pinned, release actions pinned by commit SHA, a go-licenses check that the third-party bundle matches the dependency graph, and CI passing on main (9). 30+20+15+5+9 = 79.

Devin 63

Closed service. Newest release note dated 7 October 2026 (30). Nineteen dated release notes between 7 August and 7 October 2026, and API notes for August and September (20). Public release notes and a support address, with no public tracker or forum found (10). No official SDK found and the Devin MCP server didn't appear in a search of the official MCP registry (0). No public CI or packages to assess, with the docs and three OpenAPI specs kept current (3).

Transparency & trust Devin +15

AXLR 55

Apache-2.0 with a NOTICE (30). No privacy policy or terms on underpassai.com or axlr.underpassai.com; the docs' 'Where data goes' and 'Diagnostics and privacy' sections say that model requests go to OpenRouter, the local server or the native API, that Jev sends text to TypeSafe only when on, that sessions live under $XDG_STATE_HOME/axlr, that payload capture is off by default and redacted when on, and that traces are deleted after 30 days; nothing covers the engine downloads' or the catalog registry's handling of a client's requests (15). No deprecation policy; pre-1.0 changes are dated inline in the docs and the product contract records the 5 October 2026 retirement of the first skill catalogue after the fact (6). No telemetry to disclose, and the docs say in two places what leaves the machine and how to stop payload capture, though no single page says there is no telemetry (17). 30+15+6+17 = 68.

Devin 70

Editorial half. Closed source with clear terms from Cognition AI, Inc. (15). Terms, privacy policy, security page and data processing agreement agree with each other. Customer data may be used for model training by default on self-serve plans, with an opt-out on paid plans that also turns on zero data retention at model providers. Retention is stated as the length of the customer relationship, with no periods (18). Dated notices for the schedules endpoints (announced 10 September, creation refused from 24 September 2026) and the v2 clone endpoint, but no deprecation policy and no end date for v1 and v2 (10). Sub-processors listed with purpose and country, and 15 days' notice of additions (18).

Security & auth Devin +10

AXLR 62

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other four harnesses. 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 product telemetry in the console source (the outbound hosts are openrouter.ai, api.anthropic.com, api.openai.com, a configured local server, api.github.com and github.com for engine downloads, and registry.underpassai.com for the signed catalog index) or in the docs; payload capture is off by default since 9 October 2026, traces omit prompts and credentials, model keys are never given to commands or plugins, and Jev sends requests and answers to TypeSafe only when on, which the setup assistant does when TYPESAFE_API_KEY is set, with a notice on stderr (27). Approval cards, a destructive list that always asks, four work modes, a policy level per execution, a bubblewrap or container sandbox with an enforced egress allow list, and a service that approves nothing but reads. Against that, the setup assistant writes autonomous: true, exec_sandbox is off by default, forged tools run with the person's rights, and the README says the console and worker are not sandboxes (13). Forged tools are refused when a file changes since the forge, a policy forbids calls outside the model, and the docs say MCP tools keep their own side effects, but no prompt-injection guidance was found and MCP results reach the model unmarked (6). The service keeps an event journal, audit records, a receipt with the SHA-256 of every call's arguments and outcome, and correlation ids on every event; the console keeps session records, a redacted app log and /session (14). No SECURITY.md, no security.txt on either host, no advisories, no bug bounty; release checksums and a minisign-signed catalog are integrity, not a programme (2). 27+13+6+14+2 = 62.

Devin 72

Hosted reading. Service-user keys with roles and named permissions per endpoint, revocable, with rotation endpoints in beta for Enterprise and expiring personal tokens. Custom roles are an Enterprise option, and Teams has Admin and Member only (25). Security profiles restrict network, MCP servers, git and the Devin MCP to read-only, and read-only API permissions exist. They are opt-in, and session creation accepts bypass_approval (16). AI Guardrails screen user messages and pull request comments for prompt injection, on Enterprise only, and they don't cover web pages or repository content Devin reads (8). Audit logs through the API need an enterprise-level permission. Session events and insights are available on all plans (10). SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001:2022, a disclosure address at security@cognition.ai, no security.txt, and the trust centre answers No to having a bug bounty (13).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAXLRDevinEdge
Reliability16%207030AXLR +40
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28080even
Agent ergonomics13%16.28362AXLR +21
Security & auth14%17.56272Devin +10
Payments & pricing10%12.56020AXLR +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87963AXLR +16
Transparency & trust7%8.85570Devin +15
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 70.6/100C 55.8/100

Facts side by side

FactAXLRDevin
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorUnderpass AICognition AI, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://mcp.devin.ai/mcp
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holderProprietary service under Cognition's Platform Terms of Service
Tools exposednone13
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-252026-10-07
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-06-30
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-03-09
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetyes
Popularity0 starsnone

How the scores have moved

AXLR

No score change since it was listed.

Devin

Verdicts

AXLR

A pre-1.0 Go harness with an unusually complete service contract, mutual TLS with principal roles, required idempotency keys, a policy, budget and sandbox per execution, and a result object a program can read. The console's defaults after setup are autonomy on and no sandbox, the project has one maintainer and no outside users yet, and releases carry no notes.

Devin

The v3 API is well specified, with a public OpenAPI 3.1 file covering 239 operations, problem+json errors, cursor pagination and service-user keys tied to roles. The status page records three critical and several major incidents on the cloud agent between 22 July and 24 September 2026, and no rate limit figures or retry guidance were found in the reviewed documentation.

Before you call either

AXLR

  1. Before the first prompt, set approvals.autonomous to false or run with --approve none, and turn exec_sandbox.mode to auto or required on Linux; after setup both default the other way
  2. Drive a run with axlr-tui --exec --json --policy <file> --budget <file> --sandbox <file> and read only the last result line; exit 3 means a call waits for --decide approve|deny with --session <id>
  3. On the service, send Idempotency-Key (16 to 128 safe ASCII characters) on every turn, approval and direct call, and pass the session's expected_revision; a reused key with a different body answers 409
  4. A local model must return native tool calls (llama.cpp with --jinja, vLLM with --enable-auto-tool-choice); set context_tokens on the entry and OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH for Ollama
  5. Leave TYPESAFE_API_KEY unset unless you want the setup assistant to switch Jev on, which sends requests and final answers to TypeSafe

Devin

  1. Use a cog_ service-user key with the Member role. Legacy apk_ keys fail against v3 and the MCP server with 401 or 403
  2. Set max_acu_limit on every session you create. Usage is metered by the work done and has no published unit rate
  3. Session creation is not idempotent in v3. After a timeout, list sessions by tag before creating again
  4. Enterprise keys and personal access tokens must send X-Org-Id to the MCP server. Organisation-scoped keys resolve it automatically
  5. Create scheduled work as an automation. POST to the schedules endpoint returns 403 for migrated organisations since 24 September 2026

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, AXLR or Devin?

AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

Are AXLR and Devin open source?

AXLR is open source (Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder). No open-source release is listed for Devin.

Other comparisons with AXLR or Devin

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.