# Harness vs Qwen Code

> Qwen Code scores 72.4 (BB) to Harness's 60.3 (C) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.md (~2,900 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-qwen-code.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 required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

Qwen Code scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on transparency & trust. 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
- Qwen Code: grade BB, 72.4/100, rank #107 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwen-code.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qwen-code.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.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

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

### Qwen Code (BB)

Good for: Developers and CI jobs that want an open-source harness tied to no single model vendor, with run budgets and SDKs.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 69 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 91 against 85
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 88 against 60

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

Watch for: The default approval mode is Auto, where an LLM classifier approves tool calls, and sandboxing and folder trust are both off by default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Harness | Qwen Code | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 69 | Qwen Code +34 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 91 | Qwen Code +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 85 | Qwen Code +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 53 | Harness +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Qwen Code +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 88 | Qwen Code +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 63 | Harness +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.3 · C** | **72.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness | Qwen Code |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Autonomous, Inc. | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | stdio |  |
| Auth | OAuth | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 7 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated |  | 2026-10-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 1.3k stars | 28k stars, 105k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2.8/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Qwen Code.** Apache-2.0 with no account of its own, any OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini-compatible endpoint, and headless runs bounded by turn, tool-call and wall-time budgets with distinct exit codes. Out of the box, Auto mode lets an LLM classifier approve tool calls, with the sandbox and folder trust both off. Usage statistics are on by default.

## 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

### Qwen Code

1. Pass `--approval-mode` on every run. The settings default is `auto`, and one docs page says headless runs default to asking, so don't rely on either
2. Add `--max-session-turns`, `--max-wall-time` and `--max-tool-calls`. All three are unlimited by default. Exit 53 is the turn limit and 55 a budget
3. `--yolo` doesn't turn on a sandbox. Add `--sandbox`, or on Linux set `tools.executionSandbox` with `network` set to `closed`
4. Set `QWEN_USAGE_STATISTICS_ENABLED=false` to stop usage statistics
5. Authenticate with `OPENAI_API_KEY`, `OPENAI_BASE_URL` and `OPENAI_MODEL` in CI. The browser sign-in is discontinued

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Harness or Qwen Code?

Qwen Code scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Harness leads on transparency & trust.

### Are Harness and Qwen Code open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Harness or Qwen Code

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

---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp