deepseek-harness vs personal-agent-template
Two of the top projects in Agent backends, side by side: who leads on each score part and who each one suits, then setup, license, activity and what each review found.
deepseek-harness
Plugin-based agent harness from DeepSeek with a local Web UI
personal-agent-template
eve and Nuxt personal agent with Slack, GitHub, Linear and per-user memory
Verdict
deepseek-harness ranks higher, 70 to 53. Of the 5 score parts we measure for both, deepseek-harness leads on 3, personal-agent-template on 1 and 1 is even.
- Adoptiondeepseek-harness leads by 75 points, 99 to 24: a wide gap.
- FreshnessEven at 100.
- Maintenancedeepseek-harness leads by 89 points, 100 to 11: a wide gap.
- Easy to runpersonal-agent-template leads by 67 points, 67 to 0: a wide gap.
- Agent-readydeepseek-harness leads by 15 points, 85 to 70: a wide gap.
Pick deepseek-harness if you are
Developers building agents through plugins, tolerant of breaking changes
- Starts with one npx command; no Docker or database mentioned
- Everything-is-a-plugin design on Cordis, with a dsh-plugin topic for discovery
Pick personal-agent-template if you are
Developers building a personal or small-team assistant on eve
- Memory is per authenticated principal, recalled before every turn and after compaction
- Slack identity links to the web profile so context follows the user
| What we compare | deepseek-harness | personal-agent-template |
|---|---|---|
| Score parts, out of 100 | ||
| Adoption | 99, widely used | 24, niche |
| Freshness | 100, active | 100, active |
| Maintenance | 100, healthy | 11, weak |
| Easy to run | 0, hard | 67, easy |
| Agent-ready | 85, ready | 70, partly |
| Facts from GitHub and the README | ||
| Stars | 249.7k | 475 |
| License | MIT (permissive) | MIT (permissive) |
| Last commit | Oct 2026 | Sep 2026 |
| Last release | None published | None published |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Docker | No | No |
| GPU | Not stated | Not needed |
| arm64 or Apple Silicon | Not stated | Not stated |
deepseek-harness
DeepSeek Harness (`dsh`) is a TypeScript agent harness built on the Cordis plugin framework, where every component is a plugin. It runs via `npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web` or from a source checkout with pnpm, and serves a Web UI at 127.0.0.1:3080 by default. It is a developer preview, and the README warns of compatibility-breaking changes.
Who it is for: Developers building agents through plugins, tolerant of breaking changes
Strengths
- Starts with one npx command; no Docker or database mentioned
- Everything-is-a-plugin design on Cordis, with a dsh-plugin topic for discovery
- MIT license, documentation site and third-party license notices
- Web UI binds to 127.0.0.1 by default; --no-open skips the browser
Weaknesses
- Developer preview; README warns of compatibility-breaking changes
- No tagged release published
- README does not list supported models, providers or system requirements
- Safety notice must be read before running; its contents are not in the README
- TypeScript
- Needs Node.js, pnpm (source build)
personal-agent-template
A Nuxt app plus an eve agent runtime: Better Auth email login, web chat with threads that eve persists, Slack DMs and mentions linked to the same user, GitHub tools with durable approval on writes, Linear via Vercel Connect MCP, and a bounded per-user memory document in Vercel Blob. Postgres via Drizzle holds users and links; on Vercel it deploys as two services. For developers building a single-user or small-team assistant on eve.
Who it is for: Developers building a personal or small-team assistant on eve
Strengths
- Memory is per authenticated principal, recalled before every turn and after compaction
- Slack identity links to the web profile so context follows the user
- Write actions on GitHub gate on durable approvals
- CI workflow, CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md present
Weaknesses
- Needs Vercel Connect for Slack and Linear; self-hosting those integrations is on you
- No model provider named in the README; configured through eve
- No tests listed; CI covers typecheck and build
- Requires Node 24+
- TypeScript, eve, ai-sdk
- Needs postgres, vercel-blob, vercel-connect
- GitHub template
- env example file
- sign-in: Better Auth
More in Agent backends
- deepseek-harness vs eve-software-factory-template
- deepseek-harness vs marketing-team-eve-template
- eve-software-factory-template vs marketing-team-eve-template
- eve-software-factory-template vs personal-agent-template
- marketing-team-eve-template vs personal-agent-template
- The full Agent backends ranking with reviews
Building with these?
We help teams pick an open-source AI stack and run it in production. Client work never changes a rank.