# OpenAI Agents API vs Qwen Code (slim)

> OpenAI Agents scores 73.3 (BB) to Qwen Code's 68.7 (B) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-06
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OpenAI Agents API scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Qwen Code's 68.7 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Qwen Code leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- OpenAI Agents API: BB 73.3, rank #99 of 1354 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-agents-api.min.md
- Qwen Code: B 68.7, rank #251 of 1354 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwen-code.min.md
- OpenAI Agents API, good 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 53; Transparency & trust, 85 against 66. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; No incidents deducted, where Qwen Code loses 4 points for them.
- Qwen Code, good for Developers and CI jobs that want an open-source harness tied to no single model vendor, with run budgets and SDKs. Ahead on Reliability, 69 against 60; Agent ergonomics, 85 against 80; Payments & pricing, 60 against 30. Also Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | OpenAI Agents API | Qwen Code |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 60 | 69 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 88 | 91 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 85 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 87 | 53 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 87 | 88 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 85 | 66 |

| Fact (where they differ) | OpenAI Agents API | Qwen Code |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent harness |
| Vendor | OpenAI | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessions` | no (local only) |
| Transports | https |  |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted API under OpenAI's Services Agreement. The SDKs are Apache 2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-11-01 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-10-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 28k stars, 105k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, OpenAI Agents API +34: 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.); Qwen Code 53 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. Usage statistics are on by default (`privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled` defaults to true in the settings schema at 0.26.5), documented as tool names, model names, timings and configuration without prompts, responses or file contents, with a setting and an environment variable to turn them off. Credentials are API keys in environment variables or settings.json (15). Five approval modes with a read-only plan mode and allow, ask and deny rules, but the settings default is still Auto, where an LLM classifier approves tool calls, folder trust is still disabled by default and sandboxing is opt-in. Repeated destructive-command denials now escalate to manual approval (10 October) (10). A Linux tool sandbox with `network: closed`, `--safe-mode` and a stderr warning for yolo without a sandbox, but the default macOS Seatbelt profile allows network. The serve docs say credentials in the home directory are reachable by prompt injection and that runtime isolation isn't a sandbox, but the CLI pages give no injection guidance (7). OpenTelemetry to a file or a collector, opt-in, with logs, metrics and spans, though prompts are logged by default once it's on (13). SECURITY.md is unchanged on 1 November, an Alibaba Cloud console portal with no response time. Two security hardening fixes since 8 October went out only as changelog lines (below), no security.txt was found, and CodeQL and a monthly scorecard run in CI. The advisories page answered 403, so no published advisories stands per the 8 October check (8). 15 + 10 + 7 + 13 + 8 = 53.)
- Payments & pricing, Qwen Code +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.); Qwen Code 60 (Self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0). The CLI is free under Apache-2.0 with nothing to buy (20). No card or account is needed for the software, and it runs against a local model server (20). An agent can install and run it with no sign-up, given a model endpoint (20). Alibaba Cloud's Coding Plan and Token Plan are separate purchases, and their price pages couldn't be loaded on 8 October 2026.)
- Transparency & trust, OpenAI Agents API +19: 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.); Qwen Code 66 (Apache-2.0 (30). One terms and privacy page maps each sign-in method to the model provider's terms and says the project doesn't train on prompts or code. Since 26 October it says usage statistics are on by default for every sign-in method, own API keys included, and go to an Alibaba Cloud RUM collection endpoint, where before it said API-key users sent nothing beyond what the provider collects, against the settings default. It still gives no retention period and names no legal entity (20, was 18). The end of the Qwen OAuth free tier is dated 15 April 2026 and `tools.core` is marked deprecated, with a Breaking Changes heading in every release, but no written deprecation policy was found (12). Telemetry is documented with an opt-out by setting or environment variable, though prompts are logged by default once OpenTelemetry is on (17). 30 + 20 + 12 + 17 = 79.)
- Reliability, Qwen Code +9: 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.); Qwen Code 69 (Local-package reading. npm with engines node 22 or newer (re-read in package.json at 0.26.5), Homebrew at 0.26.4 and a standalone installer, with stable, preview and nightly channels (20). Public CI, and of the 15 most recent completed CI runs on main on 8 October, 12 passed, 3 were cancelled and none failed, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (22). 1,402 open issues and 334 open pull requests per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November; the triage and follow-up bots still run in the workflows (15). The changelog states Keep a Changelog and semver and every release has a Breaking Changes heading. Breaking changes shipped in patch releases 0.23.4 and 0.24.1, and again in 0.26.1 (24 October, QQ bot session isolation) and 0.26.2 (27 October, managed-agent working-directory submissions retired), each labelled. All are 0.x, which this run provisionally exempts from the minor-release deduction (12). 0.26.5, pre-1.0 (0). 20 + 22 + 15 + 12 + 0 = 69.)
- Agent ergonomics, Qwen Code +5: OpenAI Agents API 80 (Read as an API an agent drives. Context is compacted automatically, and session budgets and streamed events keep output sized (20 of 25). Sessions can be listed, continued and steered, events streamed or sent by webhook, artifacts fetched (15 of 20). Actionable error codes with recovery steps (20). No idempotency key; a documented check-then-retry procedure (10 of 20). One session call with defaults (medium sandbox, network enabled), SDKs in five languages (15). 20 + 15 + 20 + 10 + 15 = 80.); Qwen Code 85 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP servers take `includeTools`, `excludeTools` and a trust flag, with `permissions.allow`, `ask` and `deny` rules and `--exclude-tools` (20). Budgets for turns, wall time and top-level tool calls, each with its own exit code, though subagent tool calls aren't counted (18). Documented exit codes (18). `--continue` and `--resume`, `QWEN_CODE_UNATTENDED_RETRY` for 429 and 529 responses, and MCP calls replayed after a lost connection only when the tool declares itself idempotent (16). A TypeScript SDK on npm at 0.1.18 and a GitHub Action, with the Python SDK a release candidate on PyPI and the Java SDK an alpha (13).)