# Big Arrow vs Hatchet

> Big Arrow scores 70.7 (BB) to Hatchet's 68.3 (B) for hitl ask. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-hatchet
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-hatchet.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-hatchet.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-hatchet.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
- 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: 2026-10-15

Big Arrow scores 70.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Hatchet's 68.3 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Hatchet leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do hitl ask.

- Big Arrow: grade BB, 70.7/100, rank #151 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bigarrow.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bigarrow.json
- Hatchet: grade B, 68.3/100, rank #236 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hatchet.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hatchet.json
- Best human approval and handoff for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/human-in-the-loop/index.md
- All 53 human approval comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/human-in-the-loop/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Big Arrow (BB)

Good for: An agent on a person's Mac that reaches a step only the person may do, such as a permission prompt, 2FA code or payment, and needs to show where.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 66
- Security & auth, 67 against 62
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: First commit 8 October 2026 and version 0.4.6, with flags removed or renamed between minor versions

### Hatchet (B)

Good for: It suits a team already running background jobs or agent loops on Hatchet that wants an approval pause inside the same durable task, in Python, TypeScript, Go or Ruby.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 78
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 77
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 70
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 59

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No approver inbox, Slack or email channel, routing or reminder. The owner builds the request and the way the answer is pushed


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Big Arrow | Hatchet | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 66 | Big Arrow +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 85 | Hatchet +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 82 | Hatchet +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 67 | 62 | Big Arrow +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | Big Arrow +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 90 | Hatchet +20 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 71 | Hatchet +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **70.7 · BB** | **68.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Big Arrow | Hatchet |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | Platform |
| Vendor | Franz Enzenhofer | Hatchet Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://cloud.hatchet.run` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-12 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-07-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-18 |
| 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 |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 747 stars | none |

## Verdicts

**Big Arrow.** An agent can show a person which control to click, with a labelled arrow that needs no permission to draw, never takes focus and always removes itself. The tool is a week old at version 0.4.6, runs only on macOS, reports no answer beyond how an arrow ended, and has no security policy.

**Hatchet.** A durable task waits for a keyed event without holding a worker slot, and resumes from its event log after a restart, in Python, TypeScript, Go or Ruby. Hatchet supplies only the pause and resume. It has no approver inbox, notification channel or record of who answered, and its MCP server cannot push the event.

## Before you call either

### Big Arrow

1. Open the exact System Settings pane or URL first, then point at the one control left for the person
2. Write the sign as a full sentence that names the action and, for approvals or payments, what the click does
3. Pass `--app` or `--window` for any target inside an app, so it is raised and the arrow hides while covered
4. On exit 4, run `bigarrow doctor` and ask the person to grant Accessibility to the app running your shell, not to bigarrow
5. Call `bigarrow stop` once the step is done, and add `bigarrow stop --hook` as a Claude Code UserPromptSubmit hook

### Hatchet

1. Put the approval wait in a durable task, and keep API calls, database reads and random values in child tasks, because the code between checkpoints is replayed
2. Add a sleep condition in the same or group as the event condition to set a deadline, and treat the sleep firing first as a timeout
3. Give the event a scope and the wait a lookback window when the answer can arrive before the wait starts. Both must be set together
4. Filter with a CEL expression such as `input.user_id == '1234'` so one approval key cannot resume another request's task
5. Push the answer with the SDK's event push or `POST /api/v1/tenants/{tenant}/events`. The MCP server has no tool for it
6. Grant the MCP server one profile with `hatchet mcp auth --grant <profile>`. It refuses profiles that were not granted

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Big Arrow or Hatchet?

Big Arrow scores 70.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Hatchet's 68.3 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Hatchet leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Are Big Arrow and Hatchet open source?

Yes. Big Arrow is open source (MIT). Hatchet is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Big Arrow or Hatchet

- [gotoHuman vs Hatchet](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gotohuman-vs-hatchet.md)
- [Hatchet vs Inngest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-inngest.md)
- [Hatchet vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-orkes-conductor.md)
- [Hatchet vs Permit MCP Gateway](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-permit-mcp-gateway.md)
- [Hatchet vs Pushary](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-pushary.md)
- [Hatchet vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-restate.md)
- [Hatchet vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-temporal.md)
- [Hatchet vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Hatchet vs withHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hatchet-vs-withhuman.md)
- [Big Arrow vs gotoHuman](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-gotohuman.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Inngest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-inngest.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Pushary](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-pushary.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Restate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-restate.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Temporal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-temporal.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Trigger.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-trigger-dev.md)
- [Big Arrow vs Orkes Conductor Human tasks](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bigarrow-vs-orkes-conductor.md)