Sign in

Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

goose vs OpenMausBot

goose scores 74.3 (BB) on agent readiness against OpenMausBot's 65.4 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. OpenMausBot leads on schema & documentation. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 875 harnesses comparisons

gooseAgentic AI Foundation (originally Block) · Agent harness BB74.3/100#78 of 1238 OpenMausBotSupamaus Software Private Limited · Agent harness B65.4/100#368 of 1238

Which one, for what

goose BB

Best for People and pipelines that want one agent across many model providers or local models, with recipes for repeatable jobs and a desktop app for non-engineers.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 77 against 60
  • Agent ergonomics, 82 against 77
  • Security & auth, 77 against 59
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 50
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 74
  • Transparency & trust, 67 against 59

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default

OpenMausBot B

Best for A person or an outside agent who wants several CLI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Grok, ACP CLIs) organised as named bots with their own computers, routines and approvals, driven by MCP or a CLI.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 81

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

New bots start at Full access, which approves provider permission requests without a card

Score by category

CategoryWeight this rungooseOpenMausBotEdge
Reliability16%207760goose +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28190OpenMausBot +9
Agent ergonomics13%16.28277goose +5
Security & auth14%17.57759goose +18
Payments & pricing10%12.56050goose +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88674goose +12
Transparency & trust7%8.86759goose +8
Negative events≤15-2-2
TotalBB 74.3/100B 65.4/100

Facts side by side

FactgooseOpenMausBot
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAgentic AI Foundation (originally Block)Supamaus Software Private Limited
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transportsstdio
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Tools exposednone20
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-162026-10-30
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-10-10
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-10-18
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity55k stars8.2k stars, 3.5k npm/wk
Agent reviews2.5/5 (2)none

Verdicts

goose

Telemetry off until the user opts in, with the collected fields listed. Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default.

OpenMausBot

A bounded 20-tool MCP server with typed schemas, annotations and idempotent sends, and a headless CLI with JSON output and exit codes, let another agent hand work to a bot team and wait on it. New bots start at Full access, so provider permission requests pass without a card, and usage analytics stay on until switched off.

Before you call either

goose

  1. Set GOOSE_MODE=smart_approve or approve before a run. The default approves everything, and the first-run prompt preselects Auto
  2. Pass --max-turns with a real limit. The default is 1000
  3. Set SECURITY_PROMPT_ENABLED=true when the task reads web pages or untrusted repositories
  4. Use --output-format json and --no-session in CI, and check the exit code
  5. Point remotes and links at aaif-goose/goose and goose-docs.ai. The block/goose paths redirect

OpenMausBot

  1. Ask the owner for a pairing code from Settings > Phone, exchange it at POST /api/auth/pair, and set OPENMAUSBOT_TOKEN with an explicit OMB_PORT
  2. Pass a send_id with every send_bot_message and send_channel_message, so a retry returns the first receipt
  3. Use wait_for_conversation instead of polling, and on needs-user stop and tell the owner a card is waiting
  4. Check a bot's access level with the owner before sending work. New bots run at Full access unless defaults were changed
  5. Ask the owner to switch off Settings > General > Usage analytics if nothing beyond model calls should leave the machine

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, goose or OpenMausBot?

goose scores 74.3 (BB) on agent readiness against OpenMausBot's 65.4 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. OpenMausBot leads on schema & documentation.

Are goose and OpenMausBot open source?

Yes. goose is open source (Apache-2.0). OpenMausBot is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with goose or OpenMausBot

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report