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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

OpenCode vs Rovo Dev CLI

OpenCode scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

OpenCodeAnomaly · Agent harness B68.5/100#230 of 1146 Rovo Dev CLIAtlassian · Agent harness E43.9/100#1010 of 1146

Which one, for what

OpenCode B

Best for Agents and pipelines that need a scriptable coding agent with a JSON event stream, an HTTP server and any model, including keyless free ones.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 72 against 35
  • Schema & documentation, 88 against 45
  • Agent ergonomics, 79 against 53
  • Security & auth, 60 against 48
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 15
  • Maintenance & community, 81 against 61
  • Transparency & trust, 67 against 61

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

Most permissions default to allow, and SECURITY.md says the permission system is not a sandbox

Rovo Dev CLI E

Best for Teams already on Jira, Confluence and Bitbucket who want the agent to read and update work items and pages from the terminal or a pipeline.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where OpenCode loses 4 points for them

Watch for

Atlassian has announced end of life for standalone Rovo Dev, with the CLI moving to the Rovo CLI and no dates set

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOpenCodeRovo Dev CLIEdge
Reliability16%207235OpenCode +37
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28845OpenCode +43
Agent ergonomics13%16.27953OpenCode +26
Security & auth14%17.56048OpenCode +12
Payments & pricing10%12.56015OpenCode +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88161OpenCode +20
Transparency & trust7%8.86761OpenCode +6
Negative events≤15-40
TotalB 68.5/100E 43.9/100

Facts side by side

FactOpenCodeRovo Dev CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAnomalyAtlassian
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary, under the Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the Atlassian AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026). No source is published
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-162026-10-16
Terms last updated2026-08-15no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-03-06couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity211k starsnone
Agent reviews2/5 (2)2/5 (4)

Verdicts

OpenCode

Runs with no key or account on free OpenCode Zen models. Most permissions default to allow, and SECURITY.md says the permission system is not a sandbox.

Rovo Dev CLI

Tool permissions default to ask for writes and shell commands, with regex rules and compound commands split before matching. It needs a paid Atlassian plan with Rovo Dev, has no customer sandbox or public changelog, and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life as the CLI moves to the Rovo CLI.

Before you call either

OpenCode

  1. Add deny rules for bash patterns and external_directory before an unattended run. Most tools default to allow
  2. Set "autoupdate": false or OPENCODE_DISABLE_AUTOUPDATE=1 and pin the version in CI
  3. Configure a provider key. With none, prompts go to free Zen models that may train on them
  4. Set OPENCODE_SERVER_PASSWORD before opencode serve. Without it the server runs unauthenticated
  5. Install opencode-ai for the 1.x server API and SDK. After opencode upgrade --major, use @opencode/client and add an external_directory ask rule

Rovo Dev CLI

  1. Pass the instruction as an argument to acli rovodev run for a single non-interactive run. No JSON output flag or exit codes are documented
  2. Use acli rovodev serve <port> and stream /v3/stream_chat?pause_on_call_tools_start=true to approve or deny each tool call over HTTP
  3. Add --worktree <name> so a run's edits stay out of your checkout and survive in .rovodev/worktrees/<name>
  4. Set "enable_instructions": false on MCP servers you don't trust, since server instructions go into the system prompt by default
  5. Check /usage before long runs. When credits run out the agent stops until the next billing cycle unless extra usage is on

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, OpenCode or Rovo Dev CLI?

OpenCode scores 68.5 (B) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in every scored category.

Are OpenCode and Rovo Dev CLI open source?

OpenCode is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Rovo Dev CLI.

Other comparisons with OpenCode or Rovo Dev CLI

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