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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Devin vs MiniMax Code

MiniMax Code scores 67.5 (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 harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 752 harnesses comparisons

DevinCognition AI, Inc. · Agent harness C55.7/100#738 of 1175 MiniMax CodeMiniMax · Agent harness B67.5/100#277 of 1175

Which one, for what

Devin C

Best 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 57
  • Transparency & trust, 69 against 61

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

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

MiniMax Code B

Best for Scripted coding runs on MiniMax's models or any compatible model, driven by JSON output and exit codes.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 63 against 30
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 62
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 77 against 63

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

Pre-1.0 and labelled a source preview, with npm at 0.6.12 and the public source at 0.6.5

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDevinMiniMax CodeEdge
Reliability16%203063MiniMax Code +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28081MiniMax Code +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.26275MiniMax Code +13
Security & auth14%17.57257Devin +15
Payments & pricing10%12.52060MiniMax Code +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86377MiniMax Code +14
Transparency & trust7%8.86961Devin +8
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 55.7/100B 67.5/100

Facts side by side

FactDevinMiniMax Code
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorCognition AI, Inc.MiniMax
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.devin.ai/mcpno (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Cognition's Platform Terms of ServiceMIT for first-party code, with the bundled sandbox runtime under Apache-2.0. The desktop app's source isn't published
Tools exposed13none
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-072026-10-15
Terms last updated2026-06-302026-01-19
Privacy policy last updated2026-03-092026-01-19
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularitynone2k stars, 6.8k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (4)

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.

MiniMax Code

An MIT-licensed terminal coding agent with a headless mode that returns versioned JSON, documented exit codes and an ACP server, and telemetry off by default. It's pre-1.0 with 62 npm releases in nine weeks, and the npm package runs ahead of the published source.

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

MiniMax Code

  1. Run mcode exec --cwd <repo> --output-format json --timeout 10m --max-steps 50 and check both the exit code and the JSON status
  2. Keep --permission full and off for a container or throwaway workspace. The default smart fails when it would need a person
  3. Set MCODE_PROVIDER_API_KEY and add a provider for BYOK. M Plan models need a browser sign-in with mcode login --region global
  4. Set MINIMAX_DATA_DIR per CI runner. Keys and sessions live in ~/.minimax by default
  5. Pin a version. npm published 62 releases in nine weeks and the public source trails it

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Devin or MiniMax Code?

MiniMax Code scores 67.5 (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 MiniMax Code open source?

No open-source release is listed for Devin. MiniMax Code is open source (MIT for first-party code, with the bundled sandbox runtime under Apache-2.0. The desktop app's source isn't published).

Other comparisons with Devin or MiniMax Code

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