RuddervsSchaltwerk
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Rudder
Undertone0809 · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
6.62 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.8
- Usefulness
- 7.0
- Cost
- 7.8
- Longevity
- 5.7
“It began as a fork of an early version of another project, which is the most agentic origin story on this board.”
Schaltwerk
2mawi2 · Agent harness
OSSMCP
Panel
6.62 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.3
- Usefulness
- 6.5
- Cost
- 8.2
- Longevity
- 5.5
“It drives ten different agent CLIs, which is nine more than your team will ever agree on.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Rudder | Schaltwerk |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | YesFiles are changed by the runtime Rudder assigns the issue to, such as Codex, Claude Code or Cursor. | Yes |
| Git operations | No | Yes |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | YesA --server-only mode prepares the server runtime and persistent CLI on a headless host without installing the desktop app. | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, Bash, custom HTTP runtime | via managed agents (GitHub Copilot CLI, Claude Code, Kilo Code, OpenCode, Codex, Pi, Gemini, Qwen, Factory Droid, Amp) |
| Bring your own model | Yes | YesAgents can be configured against private endpoints such as Azure or self-hosted APIs. |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 292 | 287 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Rudder | Schaltwerk | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.8 | 7.3 | Schaltwerk — Pick it if you would rather rewrite the brief than argue with a drifting agent; pick a chat-first tool if you like steering mid-run. |
| El Crítico | 6.5 | 6.5 | no preference |
| El Profesor | 5.8 | 7.0 | Schaltwerk — The unit of work is a markdown specification that outlives the attempt, so a failed run is treated as evidence about the brief rather than about the model. |
| La Inversora | 6.5 | 5.8 | Rudder — 288 stars, a fork lineage from an earlier project, and enterprise-shaped features with no enterprise price: the product is ahead of the business. |
| La Jefa | 6.5 | 5.5 | Rudder — Budgets, approvals and per-organisation governance are in the product rather than in a roadmap, which is the first time I have written that sentence this quarter. |
| El Hacker | 7.5 | 7.8 | Schaltwerk — MIT, installed with a brew cask, and it exposes its own MCP server so one agent can create sessions and drive the others without me writing the glue. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.