# Harness vs OpenMausBot

> OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) to Harness's 60 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openmausbot
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openmausbot.md (~3,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openmausbot.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openmausbot.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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-30

OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) on agent readiness against Harness's 60 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- Harness: grade C, 60/100, rank #619 of 1239. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness-autonomous.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness-autonomous.json
- OpenMausBot: grade B, 65.4/100, rank #368 of 1239. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openmausbot.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openmausbot.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 875 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.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 59

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

### OpenMausBot (B)

Good 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:
- Reliability, 60 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 85
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 60

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Harness | OpenMausBot | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 60 | OpenMausBot +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 90 | OpenMausBot +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 77 | Harness +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 59 | OpenMausBot +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 50 | OpenMausBot +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 74 | OpenMausBot +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 59 | Harness +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **60 · C** | **65.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness | OpenMausBot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Autonomous, Inc. | Supamaus Software Private Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | stdio | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 7 | 20 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-10-10 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-07 | 2026-10-18 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 1.3k stars | 8.2k stars, 3.5k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

## 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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Harness or OpenMausBot?

OpenMausBot scores 65.4 (B) on agent readiness against Harness's 60 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

### Are Harness and OpenMausBot open source?

Yes. Harness is open source (MIT). OpenMausBot is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Harness or OpenMausBot

- [Agent Zero vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Aider vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Amp vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Claude Code vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Cline vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Crush vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-harness-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Devin vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Droid CLI vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Pi vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-openmausbot.md)
- [goose vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openmausbot.md)
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- [HarnessRouter vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harnessrouter-vs-openmausbot.md)
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- [Muse Code vs OpenMausBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/muse-code-vs-openmausbot.md)
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- [Amp vs Harness](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness-autonomous.md)
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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp