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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Junie CLI vs OpenHands

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 53.2 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

Junie CLIJetBrains · Agent harness D53.2/100#804 of 1146 OpenHandsAll Hands AI · Agent harness BB70.8/100#153 of 1146

Which one, for what

Junie CLI D

Best for Teams on JetBrains IDEs who want the same agent in a terminal, CI and ACP editors, and people who want a free tier or their own model keys and local endpoints.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 78 against 67

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

One-shot, piped, ACP and Gateway runs trust the project by design and load its MCP servers, hooks, agents and skills without a prompt

OpenHands BB

Best 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 45
  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 62
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 55
  • Security & auth, 66 against 56
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 42
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 72

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Open source

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

CategoryWeight this runJunie CLIOpenHandsEdge
Reliability16%204583OpenHands +38
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26287OpenHands +25
Agent ergonomics13%16.25578OpenHands +23
Security & auth14%17.55666OpenHands +10
Payments & pricing10%12.54260OpenHands +18
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87285OpenHands +13
Transparency & trust7%8.87867Junie CLI +11
Negative events≤15-3-5
TotalD 53.2/100BB 70.8/100

Facts side by side

FactJunie CLIOpenHands
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorJetBrainsAll Hands AI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary, JetBrains s.r.o., all rights reserved, under the JetBrains AI Terms of Service. The GitHub repository holds the README, release binaries and the issue tracker, not sourceMIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-162026-09-30
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-06-122025-09-03
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity487 stars, 3.2k npm/wk90k stars
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)2.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Junie CLI

Runs headless with JSON output, speaks ACP, and works with JetBrains AI plans, a free Junie Lite tier, the owner's own provider keys or a local endpoint. Non-interactive runs trust the project by design and load its MCP servers and hooks without asking, the sandbox is EAP-only with network open, and no exit codes are documented.

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

Junie CLI

  1. Run headless only in repositories you trust. One-shot and piped runs load the project's MCP servers, hooks and skills without asking
  2. Set JUNIE_API_KEY (from junie.jetbrains.com/cli) or a provider key such as JUNIE_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in CI. The default sign-in opens a browser
  3. Add --output-format json or --json-output-file to parse results. Check the output, since exit codes aren't documented
  4. Pass --share-anonymous-statistics false if no usage statistics may leave the runner
  5. Pin a build with --use-version and --skip-update-check. The CLI updates itself on start by default

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, Junie CLI or OpenHands?

OpenHands scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 53.2 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on transparency & trust.

Are Junie CLI and OpenHands open source?

No open-source release is listed for Junie CLI. OpenHands is open source (MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service).

Other comparisons with Junie CLI or OpenHands

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