# BoxLang AI vs guilds.run (slim)

> BoxLang AI scores 65.8 (B) to guilds.run's 56.6 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boxlang-ai-vs-guilds-run.md (~4,650 tokens) · this version ~2,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boxlang-ai-vs-guilds-run.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boxlang-ai-vs-guilds-run
- 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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

BoxLang AI scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against guilds.run's 56.6 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. guilds.run leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent frameworks.

- BoxLang AI: B 65.8, rank #328 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/boxlang-ai.min.md
- guilds.run: C 56.6, rank #761 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/guilds-run.min.md
- BoxLang AI, good for Teams already running BoxLang or modernising CFML on the JVM who want agents, RAG and MCP with approval and guardrails in the same language Ahead on Reliability, 66 against 53; Schema & documentation, 71 against 58; Agent ergonomics, 74 against 67; Maintenance & community, 83 against 41; Transparency & trust, 70 against 54. Also No key needed to call it.
- guilds.run, good for A person or small team that wants a standing, inspectable team of agents with schedules, shared tables and a web app, run on one machine, and is comfortable tracking main. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 50. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | BoxLang AI | guilds.run |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 66 | 53 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 71 | 58 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 74 | 67 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 71 | 68 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 41 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 70 | 54 |

| Fact (where they differ) | BoxLang AI | guilds.run |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Ortus Solutions | Cigale AI |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0-only |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | none |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | none | 57 stars |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, BoxLang AI +42: BoxLang AI 83 (3.6.0 on 2026-10-20 (30). Three releases in the 90 days to 1 November, 3.4.0 on 1 September, 3.5.0 on 11 September and 3.6.0 on 20 October (20). 79 commits on the development branch in those 90 days from Luis Majano, Doug Cain, Copilot and dependency bots, with pull requests up to #326 merged on 1 November. Issue reply times couldn't be read (10 of 25). The ForgeBox package is current at 3.6.0 (15). Dependabot for Gradle monthly and Actions quarterly, tests on pull requests and development, and a format check (8 of 10). 83 in all.); guilds.run 41 (No tagged release. Main, which the install clones and SECURITY.md names as the supported version, last changed on 13 October 2026, so 20 of 30 rather than full marks for a release. No releases or dated changelog entries (0). Eight issues and pull requests, all closed, the three issues closed within an hour, one with two comments, on five days of history (15 of 25). No published package (0). CI on every push with a frozen pnpm lockfile, no Dependabot configuration in the repository (6 of 10).)
- Transparency & trust, BoxLang AI +16: BoxLang AI 70 (Apache-2.0, OSI approved, though the licence file sits in src/main/resources rather than the repository root (30). The FAQ says prompts and history go to the chosen cloud provider and that Ollama keeps data local, and we found no telemetry in the source, but there's no statement for the module of what, if anything, Ortus receives. Ortus's privacy policy covers its website and customers and says data is collected when you use its products without naming which (15 of 30). Migration notes are dated in the changelog, and default models were moved off a Groq model on its removal date, but there's no written deprecation policy or support window (10 of 20). No telemetry statement either way in the docs (10 of 20). 65 in all.); guilds.run 54 (AGPL-3.0-only, OSI approved (30). No privacy policy or terms. The footer links to both and they return 404. The docs say where data lives (PostgreSQL and STATE_ROOT on your host), that model keys go only to their provider, and that stored credentials are encrypted under one master key in .env (12 of 30). No deprecation policy or notices. The security register is dated (3 of 20). Sentry is opt-in and documented on the Configure page, and the Graft telemetry setting and its version lookup are disclosed on the code tools page (18 of 20).)
- Reliability, BoxLang AI +13: BoxLang AI 66 (Read with the local-software lines. Official package on ForgeBox, installed with `install-bx-module bx-ai` or `box install bx-ai`, with BoxLang 1.14.0 or later in box.json and JDK 21 in CONTRIBUTING.md, but the 3.6 announcement says BoxLang 1.18 or later (18 of 20). tests.yml runs about 140 test classes against Ollama and the vector stores in Docker Compose, and against paid providers on development and releases, on pull requests and pushes to development. Whether runs pass wasn't read, since WebFetch refused github.com (15 of 25). Open issues and replies weren't read for the same reason. The changelog closes issues #182 to #259 in 3.3.1 to 3.4.0, and bugs also go to Ortus's Jira (10 of 25). Keep a Changelog with semantic versioning stated and Migration sections, but breaking changes ship in minor releases (8 of 15). 3.6.0, past 1.0 (15). 66 in all.); guilds.run 53 (Read with the local-software lines, because the owner runs it. Docker with Compose is the stated requirement, and the install is a git clone of main plus ./setup.sh, which builds the images. No package, tagged release or published image exists, since the image workflow runs only on a v* tag and there are none (10 of 20). The verify workflow runs typecheck, lint, orchestrator, UI and web tests and a smoke test of the Compose stack, and all 13 runs on main from 9 to 13 October 2026 passed. The clone has 196 test files (25). No open issues, and the three issues filed were closed within an hour, on five days of public history (18 of 25). No version numbers, tags or changelog (0). Not versioned or declared stable (0).)
- Schema & documentation, BoxLang AI +13: BoxLang AI 71 (Framework reading. A reference page for each built-in function with its arguments, and tool schemas generated from typed function arguments with required fields since 3.3.1. BoxLang is dynamically typed and no published API reference was found, though the repository builds DocBox API docs (15 of 25). llms.txt with about 150 entries and a Markdown copy of every page (10). The FAQ says when to use aiChat() or aiAgent() and the security guide says which guards to use when, though some FAQ links still say coming soon for pages that exist (14 of 20). Tool arguments are typed with required lists, and stdio options a server doesn't have throw InvalidArgument (11 of 15). About 100 example scripts in the repository and a gallery on ai.boxlang.io, but the production guide catches RateLimitException, TimeoutException and AuthenticationException, which the module's source never throws, and there is no exception reference (9 of 15). Keep a Changelog and a release-history page per version, but the 3.6.0 page still read unreleased on 1 November and two old versions appear twice in the changelog (12 of 15). 71 in all.); guilds.run 58 (Framework reading. No OpenAPI document for the HTTP API. The recipe format guilds.recipe v2 rejects unknown keys, and connector manifests are validated with TypeBox at load (12 of 25). No llms.txt on guilds.run or docs.guilds.run (404). The docs are Markdown in the repository with an AGENTS.md (5 of 10). Pages state what the code does today, which page to read for which job, and the trust boundary in numbered rules (15 of 20). Tool input schemas, recipe caps and typed manifest fields (11 of 15). The getting-started walk says what you should see at each step, and the Operate page explains each startup error message (11 of 15). No changelog or versioned releases. The security register is the one page that keeps dated history (4 of 15).)
- Payments & pricing, guilds.run +10: BoxLang AI 50 (Self-hosted rule, scored on the paid option. No payment protocol (0). BoxLang runtime plans are public without a login, Starter $749 a year and BoxLang+ and BoxLang++ from $1,999 to $4,999 a server or node a year, plan pricing rather than per unit (10). The Apache-2.0 module installs with no card (20) and no account or sign-up (20). 50 in all.); guilds.run 60 (No payment protocol (0). Self-hosted rule. The software is free under AGPL-3.0 with nothing to buy today (20), needs no card (20) and needs no account with Cigale AI (20). The hosted edition at $19 a month is listed as coming soon and was not scored.)
- Agent ergonomics, BoxLang AI +7: BoxLang AI 74 (Framework reading, scored on what a tool-calling agent with MCP takes. An agent with an MCP server is one `aiAgent()` call with `mcpServers`, and `toolFilter` and `prefix` limit what each server adds. Skills can load lazily, but `autoLoadSkills` is on by default and injects every SKILL.md under /.agents/skills into every agent (20 of 25). MaxToolCallsMiddleware caps tool calls, window and summary memory bound history by messages or tokens, `withMaxResponseBytes` caps MCP answers and `listTools( cursor )` pages tools (17 of 20). Named exceptions (ProviderError, UnsupportedCapability, InvalidArgument, MCPCommandRefused, BXAI.SecurityViolation) but no reference page, and the changelog says a timed-out call still surfaces as a JSON parse error (12 of 20). RetryMiddleware with exponential backoff, approval resumes that don't replay the model call or rerun executed tools, and a stdio client that never repeats an in-flight call. MCP tool annotations such as readOnlyHint aren't read (15 of 20). An agent needs a name and works with defaults, and a mock provider runs with no key, but it is one language (10 of 15). 74 in all.); guilds.run 67 (Framework reading, scored on what it takes to run a tool-calling team with MCP. No code is needed. Three commands and a model key start a guild, and each agent is offered only the tools turned on for it (18 of 25). max_tool_calls defaults to 50 per run, max_input_tokens trims old tool results and hands off to a new run, and remaining_tool_calls is appended to each result after the platform cap (15 of 20). Runs end with named codes such as generation.max_tool_calls and workspace.full, and interrupted tool calls get an error result so the next model request is valid (13 of 20). readOnlyHint and destructiveHint are stored for each MCP tool and writing tools start Off. Startup does not replay a model call (14 of 20). Sensible defaults and a guided first-run dialog, but it is an application with an HTTP API and no SDK in any language (7 of 15).)