ComandavsMagi
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Comanda
Kris Hansen · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
5.93 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.7
- Usefulness
- 5.7
- Cost
- 8.0
- Longevity
- 4.3
“It charts your generated workflow as a diagram, so you can admire the shape of a program nobody wrote.”
Magi
MistRipple · Agent harness
OSSMCP
Panel
5.91 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.0
- Usefulness
- 6.0
- Cost
- 6.3
- Longevity
- 5.3
“Its tool list includes image generation, because the thing your failing test suite needed was an illustration.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Comanda | Magi |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows, web |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | YesQuality gates run arbitrary commands, and allowed_paths bounds which directories a loop may touch. | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | No |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | YesRole agents for execution, exploration, architecture, testing and review run in parallel under a mainline agent, each with its own model. |
| Headless / CI mode | YesWorkflows are YAML programs run by "comanda process" with gate-driven exit codes, and loops can be resumed from a checkpoint. | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude Code, Gemini CLI, OpenAI Codex, Kimi Code, API models, local models | OpenAI, Anthropic |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | YesLocal models are listed alongside API models as workflow participants. | 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 | 327 | 216 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Comanda | Magi | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.0 | 5.8 | Comanda — Pick Comanda when you want the same job done the same way every time; pick Forge if you would rather have a conversation than a program. |
| El Crítico | 5.3 | 5.0 | Comanda — The workflow you commit was generated from a sentence by a model, so unless somebody reads it, the supervising program and the supervised agent share an author. |
| El Profesor | 6.3 | 7.0 | Magi — One run trace records the goal, the derived tasks, every tool call, the resulting changes and the verification results, which makes a completed run auditable end to end. |
| La Inversora | 5.3 | 5.5 | Magi — 215 stars, a permissive licence, no company, and an install path that begins with building the desktop package from source. Nothing here is trying to be sold yet. |
| La Jefa | 6.0 | 5.0 | Comanda — Free across sixty engineers, it runs as a command with gate-driven exit codes so it slots into automation, and allowed_paths bounds which directories it may touch. |
| El Hacker | 6.8 | 7.3 | Magi — Apache-2.0, MCP servers attach through the same policy layer as everything else, and the whole state lives under a dotted directory in my home folder where I can read it. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.