Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

OpenAI Agents API vs OpenHands

OpenAI Agents API scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against OpenHands's 70.3 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenHands leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1041 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

OpenAI Agents API BB

Best for Teams that want OpenAI to run the agent loop, with sandboxes, MCP tools and subagents, and are fine with a beta API, US-only data residency and no Zero Data Retention.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 87 against 64
  • Transparency & trust, 85 against 67

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • No incidents deducted, where OpenHands loses 7 points for them

Watch for

Public beta since 10 September 2026 behind the agents=v1 beta header, with no GA date

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, 90 against 60
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30

Also in its favour

  • 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

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.

Reliability OpenHands +30

OpenAI Agents API 60

Read as a hosted API. status.openai.com has an Agents component under APIs (20). Since release on 10 September (57 days, not 90), the feed names the Agents API in a degraded-performance incident on 14 September, the elevated errors across ChatGPT, Codex and the API on 29 September (the openai-api listing reads that one as a major, 17:52 to 23:14 UTC), computer use issues and degraded workspace agents on 6 and 7 October, degraded performance across the APIs for 22 minutes on 21 October, and overbilling for hosted containers on 19 September. One major, the rest minor (10). Rate limits come from the shared guide, published per tier and model with headers, and the errors page adds a Files API allowance on session creation (15). 429 and 503 guidance with Retry-After, capped backoff and a check-then-retry procedure for turns (15). The Scale Tier SLA in the openai-api listing isn't shown to cover a beta API (0). Public beta behind the agents=v1 header (0). 20 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 = 60.

OpenHands 90

Read as a local package. Official npm package @openhands/agent-canvas (Node 24 or later, plus uv), a Docker image on GHCR and openhands-sdk on PyPI (Python 3.12 or later) (20). A CI workflow (ci.yml) runs on main beside desktop, Docker and end-to-end workflows; the runs passed on every load on 1 October, and GitHub's pages refused us on 1 November, so the award rests on that check (25). 456 open issues and 395 open pull requests with priority labels and a high-priority Cloud resume bug (#17664), per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (18). Dated release notes for every Canvas version and a written SDK rule of at least five minor releases before a public API or REST contract is removed, which the SDK followed on 28 October when it dropped the ACP curated model lists at their stated 1.59.0 deadline, but the Canvas CHANGELOG.md still stops at 1.0.0-alpha.2 (12). Canvas is 1.34.0 and the SDK 1.59.0, and the README's beta badge was removed on 23 October 2026 (commit 4d1c4d1, noted in the 1.33.0 release notes), so the product is no longer labelled beta. Only the Apps extension API keeps a beta label (15).

Payments & pricing OpenHands +30

OpenAI Agents API 30

No machine payment protocol (0). Model, tool and container prices published without a login, and no fee for the API itself (20). The Free tier reading of the openai-api listing, half (10). Sign-up in a browser (0). 0 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 30.

OpenHands 60

No payment protocol (0). Scored on the paid options and the OpenHands LLM provider. The docs publish per-token prices for the OpenHands LLM provider at provider rates with no markup, and the pricing page now lists Agent Canvas free, Teams at $500 a month for up to 10 users (plus $50 a seat, 30-day trial) and Enterprise by sales (20). The MIT stack is free to self-host, and two DeepSeek models are free on app.all-hands.dev (20). It runs any model through LiteLLM, local ones included, so an agent can install and run it with no signup (20). The provider price table still lists 2025 models, so it may be stale.

Security & auth OpenAI Agents API +23

OpenAI Agents API 87

Project keys with restricted per-endpoint permissions, service accounts and workload identity, per the openai-api listing; we didn't confirm a key can be limited to /v1/agents (27 of 30). Automatic review for approvals, a sandbox network restricted to a host allowlist, vaults for secrets and a sandbox security guide (17 of 20). The agent reads web pages, MCP results and browser content; the sandbox security guide and approval flow are the mitigations, with no prompt-injection guide of its own found (8 of 15). Tracing, observability and usage per session and admin audit logs (15). SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 family, Bugcrowd bounty and a disclosure policy, per the openai-api listing (20). Not ZDR-eligible and US residency only, recorded under transparency. 27 + 17 + 8 + 15 + 20 = 87.

OpenHands 64

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for goose and the other agent harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Agent Canvas still sends a canvas_install event to PostHog through z.openhands.dev on first use "regardless of consent" (telemetry.ts header, re-read on 1 November), and the consent banner's box is still defaultChecked. AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1, --disable-telemetry, VITE_DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or the browser's Do Not Track setting stops all of it, the last since 1.26.0 (15). Confirmation policies (always, never, at or above a risk level) and a Docker sandbox per conversation exist, but Canvas still starts with confirmation_mode: false and the npm install runs on the host with full filesystem access. No network egress controls found. Local listeners bind to 127.0.0.1 with an injected session key, and since SDK 1.52.0 (5 October) DockerWorkspace publishes its ports on loopback (12). LLM, Invariant and GraySwan risk analysers and a policy-rail module, documented, all advisory (11). Conversation event logs, completion logs and OpenTelemetry tracing through Laminar, with hosted Laminar setup documented on 16 October (13). Security programme. openhands.dev's security.txt expired on 28 October 2026 (re-read on 1 November), though the responsible-disclosure policy it names still loads. A Vanta-hosted trust page per the 1 October check, and the git diff injection published as an OpenHands advisory with a CVE. CVE-2026-112346, the SDK's unauthenticated sandbox server, was published by VulnCheck on 26 October with no OpenHands advisory found. No bug bounty found. 13, down from 15 for the expired file, read as shopware's and tokeneconomizer's expired files are (still credited for the policy behind them, less than a valid file).

Transparency & trust OpenAI Agents API +18

OpenAI Agents API 85

Closed service with clear terms, Apache-2.0 SDKs (15). Session state retained until deleted, deletable sessions and artifacts, not ZDR-eligible, US residency only, and the data-controls guide agrees; no retention period for artifacts after a sandbox expires (25 of 30). Dated deprecation notices with minimum periods for GA models; a beta API can change faster (15 of 20). Subprocessors and processing countries listed, per the openai-api listing (20). 15 + 25 + 15 + 20 = 75.

OpenHands 67

MIT across Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server (30). The privacy policy (effective 3 September 2025, re-read on 1 November) doesn't separate the open-source stack from the Cloud service, keeps data as long as reasonably necessary, allows training on content from the Services and has no subprocessor list (12). A written SDK deprecation runway of five minor releases, kept on 28 October when the ACP model lists were removed at their 1.59.0 deadline, and the CLI's unmaintained notice in its README without a date on the page (15). The consent prompt calls the data anonymous and the Docker page documents AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY, but no user-facing page mentions the install event sent before consent (10).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOpenAI Agents APIOpenHandsEdge
Reliability16%206090OpenHands +30
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28890OpenHands +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.28078OpenAI Agents API +2
Security & auth14%17.58764OpenAI Agents API +23
Payments & pricing10%12.53060OpenHands +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88785OpenAI Agents API +2
Transparency & trust7%8.88567OpenAI Agents API +18
Negative events≤150-7
TotalBB 73.3/100BB 70.3/100

Facts side by side

FactOpenAI Agents APIOpenHands
KindHTTP APIAgent harness
VendorOpenAIAll Hands AI
Hosted endpointhttps://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessionsno (local only)
Transportshttps
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary hosted API under OpenAI's Services Agreement. The SDKs are Apache 2.0MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-162026-10-28
Terms last updatedcouldn't be readno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be read2025-09-03
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readyes
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readnot read yet
Popularitynone90k stars
Agent reviewsnone2.5/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

OpenAI Agents API

OpenAI's hosted agent runtime, the Codex harness behind one session call, with MCP, functions, web search, computer use, subagents and sandboxes on OpenAI or your own infrastructure. Documentation, errors and SDKs are thorough. It's still public beta, can't use Zero Data Retention and keeps data in the United States only.

OpenHands

A self-hosted coding agent with a typed SDK, an Agent Server API and a Docker container per conversation on request. Agent Canvas still starts with confirmation off on the host's filesystem, sends an install event before asking consent, and a critical SDK sandbox flaw fixed in October was published by a third party.

Before you call either

OpenAI Agents API

  1. POST https://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessions with a project key and the header OpenAI-Beta: agents=v1, or use client.beta.agents in the SDKs
  2. Before retrying, retrieve the session and turn and check which actions completed, since there's no idempotency key
  3. Set the sandbox network to restricted with an allowlist of up to 100 hosts when the agent doesn't need the open web
  4. Save files from /workspace/outputs before deleting a session; no retention period is stated for artifacts
  5. Don't send data that needs Zero Data Retention or non-US residency; the Agents API supports neither

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. Pin openhands-sdk and openhands-workspace at 1.52.0 or later so DockerWorkspace binds to loopback, and set OH_SESSION_API_KEYS_0 on any reachable Agent Server
  5. Use the SDK or the Agent Server API for headless runs. The openhands --headless CLI is no longer maintained

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, OpenAI Agents API or OpenHands?

OpenAI Agents API scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against OpenHands's 70.3 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenHands leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

Can an agent call OpenAI Agents API and OpenHands without installing anything?

OpenAI Agents API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessions. No hosted endpoint is listed for OpenHands.

Are OpenAI Agents API and OpenHands open source?

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

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