# Harness² vs OpenHands

> OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) to Harness²'s 41.6 (E) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openhands
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openhands.md (~3,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openhands.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openhands.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: 2026-10-18

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Harness²: grade E, 41.6/100, rank #1029 of 1135. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/harness2.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json
- OpenHands: grade BB, 70.8/100, rank #153 of 1135. 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 354 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Harness² (E)

Good for: Researchers who want to reproduce or extend the paper's per-task harness refinement on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench with OpenCode or Codex on Vertex AI.

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- No incidents deducted, where OpenHands loses 5 points for them

Watch for: No hosted API, MCP server or tagged release. It installs from a source checkout only, and harness2 isn't on PyPI

### 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 20
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 51
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 59
- Security & auth, 66 against 44
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 36
- Transparency & trust, 67 against 44

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 | Harness² | OpenHands | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 20 | 83 | OpenHands +63 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 87 | OpenHands +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 78 | OpenHands +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 66 | OpenHands +22 |
| 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) | 36 | 85 | OpenHands +49 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 44 | 67 | OpenHands +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **41.6 · E** | **70.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Harness² | OpenHands |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Google (Google Research) | All Hands AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation). | MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 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 | 4.2k stars | 90k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Harness².** Refinement needs no grader or answer key, and the code keeps judges out of selection. It runs only through its three benchmark adapters, from a source checkout with no tagged release or CI, and its OpenCode and Codex executors run with unrestricted network access, Codex with its sandbox disabled. The benchmark gains are the authors' claims.

**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

### Harness²

1. Don't plan to call Harness² as a service. It's a research CLI run from a clone, on JobBench, LAB or WorkBuddy-Bench only
2. Ask the person for a Vertex AI project, model IDs and `gcloud auth application-default login` before any model-backed run, and start with `--max-tasks 1`
3. Run executors behind an egress firewall and block huggingface.co and github.com after setup, as the docs advise, so rubrics can't be fetched
4. Write .env yourself with GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT, HARNESS2_SOLVER_MODEL and HARNESS2_JUDGE_MODEL, since .env.example isn't shipped, and never commit it
5. Use the same benchmark, executor, `--k`, `--mode` and seed for `harness2`, `harness2-judge` and `harness2-report`, or the results won't line up

### 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, Harness² or OpenHands?

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Harness²'s 41.6 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Harness² and OpenHands open source?

Yes. Harness² is open source (Apache-2.0. Bundled benchmark runners keep their upstream licences (Apache-2.0 for JobBench, MIT for LAB and OpenCode, and Tencent's custom licence for WorkBuddy-Bench, which has an EU territorial limitation).). 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/harness2-vs-openhands.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openhands.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "harness2", "b": "openhands"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare harness2 openhands`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/harness2.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openhands.json

## Other comparisons with Harness² or OpenHands

- [Agent Zero vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-harness2.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openhands.md)
- [Aider vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-harness2.md)
- [Aider vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-openhands.md)
- [Amp vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-harness2.md)
- [Amp vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-openhands.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Claude Code vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-harness2.md)
- [Claude Code vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-openhands.md)
- [Cline vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-harness2.md)
- [Cline vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-openhands.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Devin vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-harness2.md)
- [Devin vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-openhands.md)
- [Droid CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Droid CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Pi vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-harness2.md)
- [Pi vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/earendil-pi-vs-openhands.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [Gemini CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-harness2.md)
- [GitHub Copilot CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [goose vs Harness²](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-harness2.md)
- [goose vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/goose-vs-openhands.md)
- [Harness² vs HarnessRouter](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-harnessrouter.md)
- [Harness² vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Harness² vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Harness² vs Muse Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-muse-code.md)
- [Harness² vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Harness² vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-opencode.md)
- [Harness² vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Harness² vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Harness² vs Mirror CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness2-vs-reflection-mirror.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)
- [CLI Manager vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-openhands.md)
- [Harness vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/harness-autonomous-vs-openhands.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)

---

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