# AXLR vs Jules (slim)

> AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) to Jules's 44.7 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-jules.md (~6,700 tokens) · this version ~3,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-jules.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-jules
- 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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AXLR scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Jules's 44.7 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- AXLR: BB 70.6, rank #168 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/axlr.min.md
- Jules: E 44.7, rank #1070 of 1253 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jules.min.md
- AXLR, good 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 13; Agent ergonomics, 83 against 64; Security & auth, 62 against 57; Payments & pricing, 60 against 30; Maintenance & community, 79 against 18; Transparency & trust, 55 against 46. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card; Open source.
- Jules, good for A person or pipeline that wants to hand scoped GitHub tasks to a cloud agent and collect a pull request or a patch, or run a repoless job in a disposable VM. Also Runs on your own machine.

| Category | AXLR | Jules |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 13 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 80 | 76 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 83 | 64 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 57 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 18 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 55 | 46 |

| Fact (where they differ) | AXLR | Jules |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Underpass AI | Google LLC |
| Transports |  | HTTP, stdio |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, with a NOTICE naming Tirso García Ibáñez as the copyright holder | Proprietary service under the Google Terms of Service. The TypeScript SDK is Apache-2.0; the CLI binary is closed |
| Tools exposed | none | 8 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | 2026-03-09 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-07-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 0 stars | 1.3k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, AXLR +61: 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.); Jules 18 (Closed service. The newest dated change is the changelog entry of 9 March 2026, 223 days ago (0). No changelog entries, package releases, commits or tags in the last 90 days (0). A public changelog and a Discord channel. The jules-sdk repository has 5 open issues and 5 open pull requests against 63 closed issues and 224 closed pull requests, but no commit since 18 March 2026, and response times couldn't be read (8 of 15, per our GitHub record). The official TypeScript SDK and MCP packages last published 0.2.0 on 9 March 2026, and the MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry (5). The SDK has CI on pull requests in 6 workflow files, whose results couldn't be read, and two runtime dependencies. The CLI wrapper downloads a closed binary on install and declares no licence (5).)
- Reliability, AXLR +57: 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.); Jules 13 (Hosted reading. No status page for Jules was found (0). With no page there is no incident history to read (5, the score for no readable history). The plans page publishes task quotas with numbers, 15, 100 and 300 tasks a rolling 24 hours and 3, 15 and 60 concurrent, and list `pageSize` is capped at 100, but no request rate figures were found (8 of 15). 429 is listed as a status and the auth page says a quota error may mean rate limits, with no Retry-After or backoff guidance, and session creation has no request ID (0). No SLA found (0). The API is v1alpha and labelled experimental (0).)
- Payments & pricing, AXLR +30: 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.); Jules 30 (Published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plans and their Jules limits are public without a login, and Jules sits inside the Google AI plans. The prices render per locale and weren't read, and there's no per-task price (10). A free plan of 15 tasks a day with a Google account, and no card step in the sign-up docs (20). A person signs in, accepts the privacy notice, installs the GitHub app and creates the key in the web app (0).)
- Agent ergonomics, AXLR +19: 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.); Jules 64 (API and MCP reading. Responses can be sized with `pageSize`, the standard `fields` parameter and a `create_time` filter that fetches only new activities. The MCP server has 8 tools, and `query_cache` takes a token budget (20). Token pagination on every list and filters on sessions, activities and sources (16). Google's error JSON with `status` and an ErrorInfo `reason`, plus a documented status table (14). No idempotency key on session creation and no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations on the MCP tools, with `requirePlanApproval` as the only gate before work starts (4). Only `prompt` is required and a session without a source runs repoless. One official SDK, in TypeScript, plus the MCP server and CLI (10).)
- Transparency & trust, AXLR +9: 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.); Jules 46 (Editorial half. Closed service under the Google Terms of Service. The SDK is Apache-2.0, but npm lists @google/jules-mcp as ISC while its README says Apache-2.0, and @google/jules declares no licence (12). The FAQ says private repositories aren't used for training. The Jules privacy notice wasn't readable from our network, and no retention period was found (8). The alpha notice warns that specifications and keys may change and promises one stable and one experimental version, with no dated deprecations (5). No subprocessor or data location statement found (0).)
- Security & auth, AXLR +5: 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.); Jules 57 (Hosted reading. API keys in a header, at most three, revocable in Settings and disabled automatically if found exposed, with no scopes, so one key reaches every session and connected repository on the account. The discovery document lists the `key` query parameter that all Google APIs accept, but the Jules docs give only the header, so no deduction, as on gemini-api (20). Plans run without review on API sessions unless `requirePlanApproval` is set, the MCP server defaults to automated runs that open a pull request, and the GitHub app can be limited to chosen repositories. No read-only key (10). Each VM has internet access and the FAQ puts the burden on the user. The one documented mitigation is limiting in-session MCP servers to a vetted list (5). Activities log every plan, message, bash command and patch per session. No account audit log of key use found (8). www.google.com security.txt and the Google VRP, and a SECURITY.md in the jules-sdk repository. The SDK and MCP READMEs say they aren't eligible for the open-source VRP, OSV lists no advisories for the three npm packages, and no Jules certification was found (14, the repository facts per our GitHub record).)