# Harness vs OpenHands

> OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) to Harness's 60.3 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- 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
- OpenHands: grade BB, 70.8/100, rank #152 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openhands.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openhands.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

### 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.

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5
- No incidents deducted, where OpenHands loses 5 points for them

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

### OpenHands (BB)

Good for: Teams that want to self-host a coding agent with a web UI, per-conversation Docker sandboxes and scheduled or webhook automations, or embed the agent through a Python SDK and REST API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 83 against 35
- Security & auth, 66 against 57
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 60

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Confirmation mode is off by default in Agent Canvas, and the npm install gives the agent the host's whole filesystem


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Harness | OpenHands | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 83 | OpenHands +48 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 87 | OpenHands +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 78 | Harness +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 66 | OpenHands +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | OpenHands +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 85 | OpenHands +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 67 | Harness +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **60.3 · C** | **70.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness | OpenHands |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Autonomous, Inc. | All Hands AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | stdio |  |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service |
| Tools exposed | 7 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated |  | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2025-09-03 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 1.3k stars | 90k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**OpenHands.** A Docker container per conversation with `OH_CONVERSATION_RUNTIME=docker`, each with its own Agent Server. Confirmation mode is off by default in Agent Canvas, and the npm install gives the agent the host's whole filesystem.

## Before you call either

### 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

### OpenHands

1. Set `AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1` and `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first start
2. Start Canvas with `OH_CONVERSATION_RUNTIME=docker` or use the Docker image. The npm install runs the agent on the host
3. Turn on confirmation mode with a risk threshold. Canvas starts with it off
4. Use the SDK or the Agent Server API for headless runs. The `openhands --headless` CLI is no longer maintained
5. Set `filter_tools_regex` on the agent to keep unneeded MCP tool definitions out of the context

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Harness or OpenHands?

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Are Harness and OpenHands open source?

Yes. Harness is open source (MIT). OpenHands is open source (MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Harness or OpenHands

- [Agent Zero vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openhands.md)
- [Aider vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-openhands.md)
- [Amp vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-openhands.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Claude Code vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-openhands.md)
- [Cline vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-openhands.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Devin vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-openhands.md)
- [Droid CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Pi vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-openhands.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [goose vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openhands.md)
- [HarnessRouter vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-openhands.md)
- [Kilo Code CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kilo-code-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Kiro CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kiro-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Muse Code vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-code-vs-openhands.md)
- [OpenAI Codex vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-codex-vs-openhands.md)
- [OpenCode vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencode-vs-openhands.md)
- [OpenHands vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [OpenHands vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [OpenHands vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [Amp vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Claude Code vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [CLI Manager vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [CLI Manager vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-openhands.md)
- [Cline vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Devin vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Droid CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [goose vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
- [Harness vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Harness vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Harness vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Harness vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-opencode.md)
- [Harness vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-paperclip.md)
- [Harness vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-parallax-agents.md)
- [Harness vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Harness vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Harness vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-reflection-mirror.md)
- [OpenHands vs Paperclip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-paperclip.md)
- [OpenHands vs Parallax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openhands-vs-parallax-agents.md)

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