# Droid CLI vs Harness

> Harness scores 60.3 (C) to Droid CLI's 59.1 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Harness scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Droid CLI's 59.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Droid CLI leads on reliability, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- Droid CLI: grade C, 59.1/100, rank #614 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/droid-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/droid-cli.json
- Harness: grade C, 60.3/100, rank #570 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 331 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Droid CLI (C)

Good for: Teams that want a terminal coding agent with tiered autonomy, command rules and an optional sandbox, and that will pay for a Factory plan.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 49 against 35
- Security & auth, 63 against 57
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 60

Watch for: No free tier or trial was found. Plans start at $20 a month and included usage is stated only as rolling rate limits without numbers

### Harness (C)

Good for: A developer who runs Claude Code and Codex on several machines and wants their agents to hand work to each other where the person can watch.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 79
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 72
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 10

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: Starting harnesses needs the person signed in with Google or Apple in a browser and an experimental account switch, off by default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Droid CLI | Harness | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 49 | 35 | Droid CLI +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 85 | Harness +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 82 | Harness +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 57 | Droid CLI +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 40 | Harness +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 60 | Droid CLI +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 68 | Harness +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.1 · C** | **60.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Droid CLI | Harness |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Factory | Autonomous, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Factory's Terms and Conditions. The `droid` npm package is marked `UNLICENSED` and the public repository holds documentation only. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-17 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-14 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-20 |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| 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 | 49 stars, 7.8k npm/wk | 1.3k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Droid CLI.** `droid exec` is read-only unless `--auto` raises the autonomy level, with command rules, an optional kernel-enforced sandbox, JSON output and documented exit codes. No free tier, status page or security.txt was found, the source is closed, and usage metrics go to Factory by default.

**Harness.** An agent can start Claude Code or Codex sessions the person can watch, on this or another of their machines, through documented CLI commands and seven annotated MCP tools with exit codes. Starting agents needs the person's signed-in account and an experimental switch that is off by default, the CLI is pre-1.0, and usage counts are shared by default.

## Before you call either

### Droid CLI

1. Set `FACTORY_API_KEY` (starts `fk-`) from the API keys page in Factory settings for headless runs. Interactive use signs in through a browser
2. Start with `droid exec` and no flags for analysis. Add `--auto low` for edits and `--auto medium` for installs, tests and local commits
3. Use `--output-format json` and read `is_error`, `num_turns` and `session_id`. Treat a non-zero exit code as failure
4. Set `sandbox.enabled` to true before running on untrusted code. In `droid exec` a sandbox violation is denied without a prompt
5. Pin the version in CI with `npm install -g droid@<version>`, or set `FACTORY_DROID_AUTO_UPDATE_ENABLED=false` on standalone installs, which update themselves

### Harness

1. Run `harness whoami` first. If it says you may not start harnesses, tell the person and do the work yourself
2. Ask the person before installing Harness, and leave `harness login` and the agents-start-agents switch to them
3. Treat exit 5 as final and do not retry. Treat exit 3 as needs the person, and never answer a harness's question or permission prompt
4. Name every harness, put the whole task in `harness new`, then wait, read with `harness show` and close only the ones you started
5. Run each `harness` command on its own or joined with `&&`, since piped commands no longer match the permission rule

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Droid CLI or Harness?

Harness scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Droid CLI's 59.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Droid CLI leads on reliability, security & auth and maintenance & community.

### Are Droid CLI and Harness open source?

No open-source release is listed for Droid CLI. Harness is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Droid CLI or Harness

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- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
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