Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Letta vs Sculptor

Letta scores 59.7 (C) on agent readiness against Sculptor's 53.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Sculptor leads on security & auth. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Best memory layers for AI agents · All 353 memory comparisons

Which one, for what

Letta C

Best for Long-lived coding agents and assistants that keep memory and identity across sessions and machines.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 58 against 43
  • Schema & documentation, 70 against 45
  • Agent ergonomics, 67 against 50
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 75

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

The default permission mode is unrestricted, the renamed bypassPermissions, so tool calls aren't confirmed unless the user picks another mode

Sculptor D

Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces and are fine with a research preview.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 57 against 35

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it

Watch for

Labelled an experimental research preview that may change drastically

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Schema & documentation Letta +25

Letta 70

Harness reading. docs.letta.com serves llms.txt and a Markdown version of every page, with an applies_to block saying which backend and interface each page covers (10). TypeScript types for the Agent SDK and a documented App Server WebSocket protocol, but no JSON Schema or OpenAPI for the harness (15 of 25). Pages say when to use local or cloud backends, subagents and channels (14 of 20). Permission modes and options are typed in the SDK (12 of 15). Example applications and a remote client reference (11 of 15). Releases most days but no changelog file (8 of 15). Total 70.

Sculptor 45

Harness reading. A README, specs and agent docs in the repository; no API reference (45).

Security & auth Sculptor +22

Letta 35

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Letta Cloud is the default backend, so agent state and conversations go to Letta's servers, and telemetry is on by default (10 of 30). The default permission mode is unrestricted; standard, acceptEdits and strict are opt-in, and cloud sandboxes exist for remote work (4 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found for fetched pages or channel messages (5 of 15). Conversation search and git history of memory give an operator a record of what the agent saw and changed (10 of 15). SECURITY.md routes reports to support@letta.com and scopes out the retired server; no security.txt, bounty or certification found (6 of 20). Total 35.

Sculptor 57

Harness reading. Product analytics, error reporting and session recording default to off in the user config, and the app asks for a telemetry level and privacy consent at first run; PostHog runs on the front end only for now (25 of 30). Each workspace is an isolated copy of the code (14 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). SECURITY.md (8). 25 + 14 + 5 + 5 + 8 = 57.

Agent ergonomics Letta +17

Letta 67

Harness reading. Toolsets switch with /model, skills load per agent, and subagents run in the background (18 of 25). Context is managed through memory blocks, reflection and dreaming (12 of 20). letta -p --output-format json for scripted runs and an App Server for programmatic control (12 of 20). Conversations resume by agent and conversation id, and memory is git-tracked so changes can be reverted (15 of 20). Runs with no account on the local backend, with one SDK language, TypeScript (10 of 15). Total 67.

Sculptor 50

Harness reading. Workspaces as isolated copies, review and merge back, and built-in skills (50).

Reliability Letta +15

Letta 58

Local-software lines, read for the harness. @letta-ai/letta-code on npm with Node.js 22.19 or newer, and PyPI wheels for glibc Linux, macOS 14 and Windows x64 with Python 3.9 or newer stated (20). ci.yml, nightly update smoke tests and Telegram live smoke tests exist, but GitHub's API answered with a rate limit, so run results were unread (15 of 25, unchecked). 332 open issues and pull requests, mostly pull requests; recent bug reports such as recall reading the wrong conversation have no reply yet (15 of 25). 398 tags at 0.34.x with release notes on GitHub, no changelog file, and breaking removals such as AgentFile announced in the README (8 of 15). Pre-1.0 (0). Total 58.

Sculptor 43

Local software. Desktop downloads for Mac (Apple Silicon), Linux and Linux ARM64 (20). checks.yml and a PR gate run on the repository; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). sculptor-v tags up to v0.49.0, no changelog file (8). 0.x and labelled a research preview (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 8 + 0 = 43.

Maintenance & community Letta +10

Letta 85

v0.34.42 on 6 November 2026 (30). Dozens of releases in 90 days (20). Pull requests are merged daily; recent issues from users have few replies (15 of 25). npm and PyPI packages and the Agent SDK track the releases (12 of 15). Lock files, CI and nightly smoke tests (8 of 10). Total 85.

Sculptor 75

Commits on 6 November 2026 and frequent tagged versions (30). More than three releases in 90 days (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent; the README says Imbue can't take many outside contributions yet (0). Current official downloads (15). CI on pull requests (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLettaSculptorEdge
Reliability16%205843Letta +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27045Letta +25
Agent ergonomics13%16.26750Letta +17
Security & auth14%17.53557Sculptor +22
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88575Letta +10
Transparency & trust7%8.85557Sculptor +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 59.7/100D 53.1/100

Facts side by side

FactLettaSculptor
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorLettaImbue, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transportsstdio
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-11-062026-11-06
Terms last updatedno date givenno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot read yet
Popularity3.8k stars, 86k npm/wk, 2.2k PyPI/wknone

Verdicts

Letta

Letta's open-source harness gives agents git-tracked memory blocks, skills, subagents and headless JSON runs, with a $0 plan and public per-agent API prices. It starts in the unrestricted permission mode, defaults to Letta Cloud, sends usage telemetry unless LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 is set, and the V1 API server the comparisons describe is retired.

Sculptor

Imbue's open-source app for parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces, with telemetry off until you choose otherwise. It's an experimental research preview that warns of bugs and drastic changes, Mac and Linux only, with no changelog.

Before you call either

Letta

  1. Start headless runs with an explicit permission mode such as standard or strict; the default auto-approves tools
  2. Pass --backend local for work that must stay on the machine, since Letta Cloud is the default
  3. Set LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 in unattended runs if usage events must not be sent
  4. Use letta -p --output-format json for scripted runs and parse the JSON, not the terminal output
  5. Don't plan on the retired V1 REST server or .af AgentFile import; both are gone

Sculptor

  1. Download from the README's links, connect a repository and create a workspace before prompting
  2. Review the diff before merging a workspace back to main

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Letta or Sculptor?

Letta scores 59.7 (C) on agent readiness against Sculptor's 53.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Sculptor leads on security & auth.

Are Letta and Sculptor open source?

Yes. Letta is open source (Apache-2.0). Sculptor is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Letta or Sculptor

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.