AgentOSvsSwarmForge
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
AgentOS
Smart Computer · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
5.50 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.0
- Usefulness
- 4.2
- Cost
- 7.2
- Longevity
- 4.7
“Propose, shadow, approve, apply, execute, receipt, audit: seven gates for the agent, and none for the human who typed the prompt.”
SwarmForge
Robert C. Martin · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
5.32 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.5
- Usefulness
- 5.8
- Cost
- 5.3
- Longevity
- 4.5
“The role packs are sold as a two-pack, a four-pack and a six-pack, which is the first agent framework priced like beer.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | AgentOS | SwarmForge |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux | macos, linux |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | Yes |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | multiple providers | Claude Code, Codex, Grok, Copilot CLI |
| Bring your own model | Yes | YesBackends are agent CLIs rather than raw models: grok, codex, claude or copilot, with remaining arguments passed straight through. |
| Local models | No | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | n/a |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | unspecified |
| GitHub stars | 216 | 3,944 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | AgentOS | SwarmForge | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 5.5 | 5.5 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 5.3 | 4.8 | AgentOS — Workflows request declared effects and adapters answer, so anything nobody wrote an adapter for is not merely hard, it is unreachable. |
| El Profesor | 6.3 | 5.8 | AgentOS — A single-threaded deterministic kernel whose worlds replay to identical state from an event log is a verification property, not a capability claim. |
| La Inversora | 5.0 | 5.3 | SwarmForge — 3,717 stars for a project whose distribution is one author's reputation, with no licence, no price and no entity behind it. |
| La Jefa | 5.0 | 4.0 | AgentOS — Zero per seat across sixty desks, a signed receipt for every action, and no console, no SSO and nothing that runs unattended. |
| El Hacker | 6.0 | 6.5 | SwarmForge — It is worktrees and tmux with four interchangeable agent backends and arguments passed straight through, which is exactly how I would have built it. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.