harnessrouter vs mirage
The two are close in size: 2.4k stars for harnessrouter, 3.6k for mirage. Over the days we have tracked them harnessrouter moved +321.5% and mirage +12.7%, so harnessrouter is growing faster right now.
They split the axes: harnessrouter leads on model freedom, mirage on customization.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
A single-container, self-hosted runtime implementing the Unified Harness Protocol that runs multiple agent harnesses locally with your keys and no telemetry.
- Stars
- 2.4k
- Tracked growth
- +321.5%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 16m ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Your API key; provider billing applies
Mounts dozens of services (S3, Slack, Gmail, databases, etc.) side-by-side as a single POSIX-like virtual filesystem so agents can use bash-native pipelines across backends.
- Stars
- 3.6k
- Tracked growth
- +12.7%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 8h ago
- Language
- TypeScript
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Free, self-hosted; external API costs apply
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | harnessrouter | mirage |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Whole-repo analysis | ●●●●● Whole workspace |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Minimal controls | ●●●●● Basic filters/config |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Integration & policies | ●●●●● Extensible commands |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hosted (provider keys) | ●●●●● Self-hostable |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● Bring-your-own-key | ●●●●● Multiple adapters |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● Docker + API key | ●●●●● CLI / SDK quickstart |
Which one to pick
Pick harnessrouter if…
Privacy-first — a one-container, self-hosted agent runtime that keeps keys and data on your infrastructure while supporting many provider backends.
- Model freedom: Bring-your-own-key (5/5 against 3/5)
Pick mirage if…
Unified VFS — pick Mirage when you want agents to access remote services and local files through one POSIX-style filesystem, enabling cross-backend commands, portable workspaces, and embeddable runtimes.
- Customization: Extensible commands (5/5 against 3/5)
What people want from each one
HarnessRouter/harnessrouter
strukto-ai/mirage
Hacker News: Mirage – A programming framework for building type-safe, modular systems drew 317 points and 88 comments.
Questions people ask
Is harnessrouter better than mirage?
They split the axes: harnessrouter leads on model freedom, mirage on customization. harnessrouter is worth picking when privacy-first — a one-container, self-hosted agent runtime that keeps keys and data on your infrastructure while supporting many provider backends.
Which of harnessrouter and mirage keeps my code private?
harnessrouter: Self-hosted (provider keys) (4/5). mirage: Self-hostable (4/5).
What does each one cost to run?
harnessrouter: Your API key; provider billing applies. mirage: Free, self-hosted; external API costs apply.
Full profiles: HarnessRouter/harnessrouter and strukto-ai/mirage. Everything else in Runtimes & sandboxes.