WarpvsZero
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Warp
Warp · Terminal agent
#20OSSMCP
Panel
6.52 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.5
- Usefulness
- 6.7
- Cost
- 5.5
- Longevity
- 7.2
“Scored 75.8 on SWE-bench Verified with a best-of-k wrapper, which is also how most of us get through code review.”
Zero
Gitlawb · Terminal agent
#6OSSMCP
Panel
7.02 spec wins
- Reliability
- 6.7
- Usefulness
- 7.0
- Cost
- 8.2
- Longevity
- 6.2
“It accepts image input in a terminal, a sentence that would have ended a career in 2019.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Warp | Zero |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local, cloud | local, sandbox |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | Yes | Yes |
| Browser control | YesComputer Use environments bundle Chromium plus the Playwright CLI and can attach over CDP, so the agent navigates, clicks, fills forms and reads pages. | YesBrowser and terminal control helpers ship with the npm and release builds; source builds need those helper binaries on PATH or configured in local-control settings. |
| Sandboxed execution | YesCloud runs execute in a containerized sandbox built from a Docker image with no access to the local machine; local interactive sessions are not sandboxed. | NoZero ships a native Linux sandbox helper using seccomp rather than Docker; source builds must build the `zero-linux-sandbox` helper separately. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | Yes | Yes`zero exec` returns exit codes and has a documented GitHub Action recipe. |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, open-weight models via Fireworks | OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Mistral, xAI, Qwen, Kimi, GitHub Models, Fireworks, MiniMax, Ollama, LM Studio |
| Bring your own model | YesAny OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenRouter, LiteLLM, an internal gateway) plus BYO Anthropic, OpenAI or Google keys and custom routers. | Yes |
| Local models | YesOllama, LM Studio, vLLM and llama.cpp are supported through the custom inference endpoint, but only when exposed at a public URL via a tunnel, since localhost and private addresses are rejected. | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | mixed | byok |
| Starts at | $20/mo | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 65,338 | 1,688 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Warp | Zero | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.3 | 7.3 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 6.0 | 6.8 | Zero — Package builds ship the browser and terminal control helpers; a source build needs those binaries on PATH and expects you to build the Linux sandbox helper separately. |
| El Profesor | 6.0 | 7.3 | Zero — Sessions can be resumed or forked, which makes a continuation a controlled variable, and the headless mode emits text, JSON or stream-JSON rather than prose only. |
| La Inversora | 6.8 | 5.5 | Warp — Warp spent years building a terminal, open-sourced it under AGPL, and is now selling credits and $200 Max plans on top of it; the terminal is the distribution, the agent is the business. |
| La Jefa | 6.0 | 6.8 | Zero — Nothing to license for sixty, and it is the rare tool that returns meaningful exit codes with a documented continuous integration recipe, so it can gate a build. |
| El Hacker | 6.8 | 8.5 | Zero — MIT, twenty-five providers with Ollama and LM Studio among them, and it works as an MCP server as well as a client, so my tools go both ways. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.