Is Harden free?
Yes, per its Product Hunt listing it is free for an individual developer and installs with a single command.
Beam vs HARDEN
Beam vs Harden
Harden is a free, local pre-execution checker: a post-trained model evaluates each tool call against your request and session history before it runs, across seven coding agents including Claude Code and Cursor, and it says it beat frontier models on agent-security benchmarks. That is a claim from its own Product Hunt launch, not something our source research independently verifies. Beam differs by scanning skill files and MCP configs as a separate pre-run step and by keeping a full local activity timeline.
Beam vs Harden, side by side
Details below are drawn from a September 2026 review of the AI agent security market. Some figures are vendor-sourced or analyst estimates, and this is a fast-moving space — check with each vendor before you buy. Composio details come from its own pricing and documentation pages as of October 2026.
| Beam | Harden | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Local-first activity monitor, policy enforcement, and pre-run scanner for AI coding agents, with a Sentinel browser extension for AI chats. | Free local security tool for AI coding agents, using a post-trained model to check tool calls pre-execution. |
| Monitoring | Shell commands, file changes, tool calls, network endpoints and browser actions from harnesses such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, plus Beam Sentinel checks on supported AI chat sites before send. Normalised into local NDJSON with risk flags and evidence attached. | A post-trained model evaluates each tool call against the user's request and session history before it runs, across 7 coding agents: Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Openclaw, Hermes, Amazon Kiro and Gemini AntiGravity. It inspects below the tool-call boundary too — script contents, touched files and dependencies — so a harmless-looking call whose underlying script does something risky can still be caught. |
| Skill / MCP scanning | Yes. SKILL.md files and MCP configurations are scanned before you run them, using 11 heuristic patterns plus an MCP version-pin check. Workspace admins can also block an MCP server for the org or one user. | Not a dedicated pre-run skill scanner. Coverage extends to the install step (e.g. an agent running npx) when that action goes through the monitored tool-call flow. |
| Blocking / enforcement | Yes. Workspace owners and admins set observe, advisory, or enforce policy. Enforce denies matching tool calls on Claude Code and Codex PreToolUse hooks. The Sentinel Chrome extension pauses or blocks high-risk browser sends and can hold a send after redacting live secrets. | Yes. It is a pre-execution check, positioned as 'let it run' instead of approving every action; when it is unsure whether an action is safe, it currently allows and logs it by design rather than blocking, to avoid hurting productivity. |
| Individual use | Free for up to 3 people, and Pro for one person at $8/month. Team workspaces add owner/admin roles, org baselines, stricter member overrides and a control plane. | Free for an individual developer, installed with a single command. |
| Deployment | Local collector plus a workspace dashboard. Apple and Windows MDM. Sentinel Chrome extension for browser AI chats. Licensed self-hosted control plane for teams that need it on their own infrastructure. | Runs fully locally; repo and tool output reportedly never leave the machine. |
| Source / licence | AGPL-3.0 for the local CLI and collector; the multi-user control plane is proprietary. | Not described as open source in our source research; runs fully locally. |
| Pricing | Free for up to 3 people. Pro $8/month for one person. Team $20 per developer and $5 per browser seat a month, billed yearly. | Free for an individual developer. |
Harden in numbers
As reported in our source research. Some figures are estimates.
- Launched
- Product Hunt launch week, September 2026 (per its Product Hunt listing)
- Product Hunt rating
- 4.5 stars, 2 reviews at launch (as reported on Product Hunt)
- Agent coverage
- Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Openclaw, Hermes, Amazon Kiro, Gemini AntiGravity
- Claimed benchmark result
- Says it beat frontier models on agent-security benchmarks, per its own Product Hunt listing — not independently verified in our source research
Where Harden does more
- Checks a tool call before it executes using the user's request and session context, rather than only classifying activity after the fact.
- It is free for individual developers and installs with one command.
- Runs fully locally, keeping repo contents and tool output off any external service.
Where Beam differs
- Beam scans a SKILL.md or mcp.json as its own step before you run it, rather than only evaluating tool calls as they occur.
- Beam normalises shell, file, tool, network and browser activity from several harnesses into one local NDJSON timeline with evidence attached.
- Beam's record and its approach to uncertain cases are documented in this repo; Harden's own account of unsure-verdict handling ('allow and log') comes only from its Product Hunt comments, so treat that detail as vendor-reported.
Beam’s current gaps
- Enforce is hook-based: a native deny is wired for Claude Code and Codex PreToolUse. Cursor, Copilot CLI and Gemini currently get a deny note, not a verified block.
- Missing, unreadable or expired cached policy allows the action. Beam is not a fail-closed kernel sandbox or an in-silicon watchdog.
- Scanning is heuristic pattern matching. It produces false positives, misses novel phrasing, and is not a guarantee of safety.
- There is no SOC 2 report and no default SIEM forwarder. Kernel isolation like OpenShell remains a different layer.
Which one fits
If you want a free, always-on check in front of every tool call today, Harden is worth trying — it is free for individuals and installs in one command. Beam is worth a look if a persistent local timeline of everything an agent did, plus a dedicated skill/MCP scan, is what you're after; the two address overlapping but not identical problems.
FAQ
Does Harden block risky tool calls?
It checks tool calls before they run using request and session context. Per its maker's own comments on Product Hunt, when it is unsure whether an action is safe it currently allows and logs the action rather than blocking, to avoid hurting developer productivity. Beam's enforce mode denies matching Claude Code and Codex tool calls from workspace policy; missing or expired cached policy is fail-open.
Which coding agents does Harden support?
Seven, per its Product Hunt listing: Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Openclaw, Hermes, Amazon Kiro and Gemini AntiGravity.
See how Beam works
Beam is an early, local-first prototype. Read what it actually does today before comparing it further.