SymphonyvsYao Agents
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Symphony
OpenAI · Agent harness
OSS
Panel
4.85 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.7
- Usefulness
- 4.8
- Cost
- 5.5
- Longevity
- 4.0
“The release binary is symphony-v0.0.1, so the version number doubles as the maintenance plan.”
Yao Agents
YaoApp · Agent harness
Panel
4.50 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.2
- Usefulness
- 3.3
- Cost
- 7.0
- Longevity
- 3.7
“Self-hosted and free, this proprietary agent harness runs on your devices but doesn't bring its own models or sandboxing capabilities.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Symphony | Yao Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux | macos, linux, windows, web |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | No |
| Multi-file edits | No | No |
| Git operations | Yes | No |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Codex (OpenAI) | |
| Bring your own model | No | No |
| Local models | No | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | free | free |
| Starts at | $0/mo | n/a |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | No | No |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | No |
| License | Apache-2.0 | proprietary |
| GitHub stars | 27,502 | 8,069 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Symphony | Yao Agents | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 4.8 | 5.8 | Yao Agents — Yao Agents is a free, self-hosted option for running and tracking multiple agents across your personal devices, but it lacks the core coding tools to be useful for development work. |
| El Crítico | 3.5 | 5.8 | Yao Agents — This is an agent management platform, not an agent execution environment. |
| El Profesor | 5.5 | 2.0 | Symphony — WORKFLOW.md is YAML front matter over a Markdown prompt; a workspace per issue, max_concurrent_agents defaulting to 10 and max_turns to 20, restarts on stall, PRs with proof of work. |
| La Inversora | 4.5 | 5.3 | Yao Agents — This is a classic venture-subsidized free tier play; use it for personal tasks, but don't build a business on a platform with no visible revenue model. |
| La Jefa | 4.3 | 4.8 | Yao Agents — Self-hosted, free, and no enterprise features means this is a personal tool, not a team one; it is not ready for procurement. |
| El Hacker | 6.0 | 3.8 | Symphony — Apache-2.0 Elixir, one codex.command key to swap the agent, hooks.after_create to prepare a workspace, no MCP, no local models, and a README that tells me to fork it. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.