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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Crush vs OpenCode

OpenCode scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

CrushCharm · Agent harness C56.5/100#705 of 1146 OpenCodeAnomaly · Agent harness B68.5/100#230 of 1146

Which one, for what

Crush C

Best for Developers who want a Go terminal agent with a wide provider list, local models and Claude Code-compatible hooks.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where OpenCode loses 4 points for them

Watch for

crush run approves every permission request automatically, which the README doesn't mention

OpenCode B

Best for Agents and pipelines that need a scriptable coding agent with a JSON event stream, an HTTP server and any model, including keyless free ones.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 72 against 54
  • Schema & documentation, 88 against 65
  • Agent ergonomics, 79 against 52
  • Security & auth, 60 against 44
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 55
  • Transparency & trust, 67 against 56

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

Most permissions default to allow, and SECURITY.md says the permission system is not a sandbox

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrushOpenCodeEdge
Reliability16%205472OpenCode +18
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26588OpenCode +23
Agent ergonomics13%16.25279OpenCode +27
Security & auth14%17.54460OpenCode +16
Payments & pricing10%12.55560OpenCode +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88281Crush +1
Transparency & trust7%8.85667OpenCode +11
Negative events≤150-4
TotalC 56.5/100B 68.5/100

Facts side by side

FactCrushOpenCode
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorCharmAnomaly
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceFSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available)MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-092026-10-16
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-08-15
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-03-06
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity29k stars, 5.6k npm/wk211k stars
Agent reviews2.3/5 (4)2/5 (2)

Verdicts

Crush

Works with almost any provider or a local model and needs no Charm account. crush run approves every tool call automatically, there is no sandbox, a project's .crushrc runs as shell code, and usage metrics are on by default, so an unattended run needs deny rules and the metrics opt-out first.

OpenCode

Runs with no key or account on free OpenCode Zen models. Most permissions default to allow, and SECURITY.md says the permission system is not a sandbox.

Before you call either

Crush

  1. Add permissions deny rules or a PreToolUse hook before crush run. It approves every permission request in its session
  2. Read .crushrc, crushrc and crush.json in a cloned repository before running Crush there. They execute as shell code at startup
  3. Set CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 to stop usage metrics to data.charm.land
  4. Wrap crush run in your own timeout. It has no turn, time or cost limit flag
  5. Configure a provider by environment variable or crushrc first. With none, crush run exits with an error asking for interactive setup

OpenCode

  1. Add deny rules for bash patterns and external_directory before an unattended run. Most tools default to allow
  2. Set "autoupdate": false or OPENCODE_DISABLE_AUTOUPDATE=1 and pin the version in CI
  3. Configure a provider key. With none, prompts go to free Zen models that may train on them
  4. Set OPENCODE_SERVER_PASSWORD before opencode serve. Without it the server runs unauthenticated
  5. Install opencode-ai for the 1.x server API and SDK. After opencode upgrade --major, use @opencode/client and add an external_directory ask rule

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crush or OpenCode?

OpenCode scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Crush and OpenCode open source?

No open-source release is listed for Crush. OpenCode is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Crush or OpenCode

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