# mini-swe-agent vs Qoder CLI

> Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) 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

Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. mini-swe-agent leads on reliability and payments & pricing. 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
- Qoder CLI: grade C, 59.3/100, rank #609 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qoder-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qoder-cli.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 51
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

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

### Qoder CLI (C)

Good for: Developers already on Qoder who want the same agent in a terminal, in CI through a PAT, in Zed through ACP, or embedded through the Agent SDK.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 69
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5

Watch for: No local sandbox is documented, and `auto` mode approves read-only tools on any path


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | mini-swe-agent | Qoder CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 51 | mini-swe-agent +19 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 81 | Qoder CLI +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 80 | Qoder CLI +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 55 | mini-swe-agent +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | mini-swe-agent +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 72 | Qoder CLI +23 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 64 | Qoder CLI +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **56.7 · C** | **59.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | mini-swe-agent | Qoder CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) | Qoder (BRIGHT ZENITH PRIVATE LIMITED) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under the Qoder Terms of Service (BRIGHT ZENITH PRIVATE LIMITED, last updated 29 April 2026). No source is published, and the Agent SDK's LICENSE file points to the same terms |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked |  |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk | 5k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Qoder CLI.** A closed-source terminal agent with a documented headless mode, an ACP server, typed TypeScript and Python SDKs and near-daily releases. Permission rules and modes are detailed, but no local sandbox is documented, usage statistics are on by default, and security fixes appear only as one-line release notes with no advisories or disclosure policy.

## 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

### Qoder CLI

1. Set `QODER_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN` in CI. The browser sign-in can't complete in a headless run
2. Pass `--permission-mode` with `--allowed-tools` in headless runs. Every ask is denied, and `--yolo` removes all checks
3. Set `--max-turns` on unattended runs, and branch on exit codes 41 (authentication) and 53 (turn limit)
4. Set `privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled` and `aiCodeStatistics.enabled` to false in ~/.qoder/settings.json if usage data must stay local
5. Don't pass `--model lite`. The Lite tier was removed on 18 September 2026 and headless requests naming it fail

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, mini-swe-agent or Qoder CLI?

Qoder CLI scores 59.3 (C) on agent readiness against mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. mini-swe-agent leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Are mini-swe-agent and Qoder CLI open source?

mini-swe-agent is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Qoder CLI.


## For agents

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

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