# mini-swe-agent vs OpenAI Codex (slim)

> 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.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-openai-codex.md (~3,550 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-openai-codex.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mini-swe-agent-vs-openai-codex
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-18
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link this page when you pass anything on

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: C 56.7, rank #698 of 1146 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.min.md
- OpenAI Codex: BB 73.4, rank #94 of 1146 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-codex.min.md
- mini-swe-agent, 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 No key needed to call it.
- OpenAI Codex, 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 Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | mini-swe-agent | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 58 | 90 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 69 | 80 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 56 | 82 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 49 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 51 | 84 |

| Fact (where they differ) | mini-swe-agent | OpenAI Codex |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) | OpenAI |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| 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) |