ccswarmvsCodeMachine
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
ccswarm
nwiizo · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
5.81 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.0
- Usefulness
- 5.7
- Cost
- 6.7
- Longevity
- 4.7
“It can scaffold a fresh repository where the tests already pass, which is the most honest demonstration environment on this board.”
CodeMachine
CodeMachine · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
5.81 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.3
- Usefulness
- 6.3
- Cost
- 6.0
- Longevity
- 5.3
“Its selling point is doing the thinking you were already supposed to be holding in your head.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | ccswarm | CodeMachine |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | YesCode changes are made by the provider CLI (Claude Code or Codex) that ccswarm drives. | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | No |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | YesIt drives the headless scripting mode that Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other engines expose, rather than running unattended itself. |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude Code, Codex | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | No | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| GitHub stars | 153 | 2,512 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | ccswarm | CodeMachine | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.3 | 6.0 | ccswarm — Pick it if you already pay for a provider CLI and want a shape around it; pick nothing at all if you are still choosing which agent to trust. |
| El Crítico | 5.5 | 5.3 | ccswarm — It does not edit code itself; the provider command line does, so every breaking change upstream lands in your pipeline as an outage you did not cause. |
| El Profesor | 6.3 | 6.0 | ccswarm — The flow declares plan, a consensus stage, implementation, review and fix as separate steps, which puts verification inside the loop rather than after it. |
| La Inversora | 5.0 | 5.0 | no preference |
| La Jefa | 5.8 | 4.8 | ccswarm — Every run leaves an NDJSON trail we can replay, diff and roll back, and there is still no console, no single sign-on and no per-seat anything. |
| El Hacker | 5.8 | 7.5 | CodeMachine — Apache-2.0, one global npm install, and the workflow is a file I own rather than a hosted definition, which is the whole reason to use a layer like this. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.