# Devin vs Pi

> Pi scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent harness. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-earendil-pi
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-earendil-pi.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-earendil-pi.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-earendil-pi.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
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Pi scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do agent harness.

- Devin: grade C, 55.7/100, rank #505 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/devin.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/devin.json
- Pi: grade B, 68.4/100, rank #180 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/earendil-pi.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/earendil-pi.json

## Which one, for what

### Devin (C)

Good 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 61
- Transparency & trust, 69 against 64

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Pi loses 4 points for them

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

### Pi (B)

Good for: Developers and pipelines that want a small, scriptable coding agent they can extend in TypeScript and drive over JSONL or RPC, inside their own container.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 30
- Agent ergonomics, 76 against 62
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 63

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: No permission system or sandbox. Tool calls run with the user's rights and without an approval prompt


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Devin | Pi | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 30 | 75 | Pi +45 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 84 | Pi +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 76 | Pi +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 72 | 61 | Devin +11 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | Pi +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 87 | Pi +24 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 64 | Devin +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **55.7 · C** | **68.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Devin | Pi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cognition AI, Inc. | Earendil |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.devin.ai/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Cognition's Platform Terms of Service | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 13 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-30 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-03-09 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | none | 113k stars, 5.2M npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Pi.** Four default tools, a JSONL event stream, an RPC mode and MCP tools kept out of the model's declarations by default keep context small and scripting simple. Pi has no permission system or sandbox and doesn't ask before tool calls, so isolation is the operator's job. Version 1.0.0 is dated 1 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Pi

1. Run Pi inside a container or VM for unattended work. It has no sandbox and doesn't ask before running shell commands
2. Use `pi --mode json` and wait for `agent_settled`. A failed response doesn't set a nonzero exit code in JSON mode
3. Split the JSONL stream on LF only. Node's `readline` also splits on U+2028 and U+2029, which are valid inside JSON strings
4. Pass `--no-approve` or `--approve` in scripts to make the project trust decision explicit
5. Set `PI_TELEMETRY=0` and `PI_SKIP_VERSION_CHECK=1`, or `PI_OFFLINE=1`, to stop the default requests to pi.dev

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Devin or Pi?

Pi scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Are Devin and Pi open source?

No open-source release is listed for Devin. Pi is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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- [Devin vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-qwen-code.md)
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- [Pi vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Pi vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Pi vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-opencode.md)
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