# mini-swe-agent vs OpenAI Codex

> OpenAI Codex scores 73.4 (BB) to mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

OpenAI Codex scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. mini-swe-agent leads on reliability. Both do agent harnesses.

- mini-swe-agent: grade C, 56.7/100, rank #698 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mini-swe-agent.json
- OpenAI Codex: grade BB, 73.4/100, rank #94 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-codex.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-codex.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### mini-swe-agent (C)

Good for: Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 55

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: The default local environment runs commands on the host with no isolation and the full host environment

### OpenAI Codex (BB)

Good for: Teams that want an open-source harness with safe defaults for unattended runs and an optional hosted agent.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 69
- Security & auth, 82 against 56
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 84 against 51

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

Watch for: Pre-1.0 at 0.163.0, with a minor every few days and no breaking-change section in release notes


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | mini-swe-agent | OpenAI Codex | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 55 | mini-swe-agent +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 90 | OpenAI Codex +32 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 80 | OpenAI Codex +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 82 | OpenAI Codex +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 87 | OpenAI Codex +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 84 | OpenAI Codex +33 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **56.7 · C** | **73.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | mini-swe-agent | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 (Codex CLI, its Rust crates and the TypeScript and Python SDKs). Codex cloud is a hosted service under OpenAI's terms |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk | 126k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**mini-swe-agent.** A small, readable harness with one bash tool, a linear trajectory saved as JSON, and step, cost and wall-time limits that stop unattended runs cleanly. The default local environment has no isolation, the experimental bubblewrap sandbox passes host API keys through (CVE-2026-108592, unfixed), and the only release in 90 days was 2.4.6 on 23 July 2026.

**OpenAI Codex.** Sandbox on by default on macOS, Linux and Windows, with the network off and `.git` and `.codex` read-only. Pre-1.0 at 0.163.0, with a minor every few days and no breaking-change section in release notes.

## Before you call either

### mini-swe-agent

1. Run with `-y --exit-immediately` for unattended use. Without `--exit-immediately` it waits for input when the agent finishes
2. Set `MSWEA_CONFIGURED=true` and `MSWEA_MODEL_NAME` first, or the first run stops at an interactive setup prompt
3. Read `info.exit_status` in the `-o` trajectory file. A run that hits its limits still exits normally
4. For untrusted repositories use `-c mini.yaml -c environment.environment_class=docker -c environment.image=<image>`. The local and bubblewrap environments both expose host variables
5. Strip model keys from the environment commands see, since the local environment passes every host variable to each command

### OpenAI Codex

1. Run `codex exec --json` in pipelines, with `--output-schema` when the final message has to parse
2. Keep the default sandbox, which has the network off. `--yolo` removes both the sandbox and approvals
3. Replace `gpt-5.5` with `gpt-6.1-sol` in saved configs, custom agents and scripts under ChatGPT sign-in. GPT-5.5 retired there on 14 October 2026
4. Set `[analytics] enabled = false` and `[feedback] enabled = false` in config.toml to keep usage data local
5. Pin the npm version. A 0.x minor lands every few days

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, mini-swe-agent or OpenAI Codex?

OpenAI Codex scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. mini-swe-agent leads on reliability.

### Are mini-swe-agent and OpenAI Codex open source?

Yes. mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT). OpenAI Codex is open source (Apache-2.0 (Codex CLI, its Rust crates and the TypeScript and Python SDKs). Codex cloud is a hosted service under OpenAI's terms).


## For agents

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

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- [Agent Zero vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openai-codex.md)
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