Short answer
Maritime provisions a persistent agent instance per customer as a monthly slot that can sleep when idle. HarnessRouter executes complete harnesses as isolated task runs through one contract, with continuity stored in durable sessions and files. For products that need to run, compare, or change harnesses without rebuilding the backend, HarnessRouter provides that layer today.
HarnessRouter is the world's first unified interface for agent harnesses. It means one API contract for starting tasks, streaming progress, continuing sessions, and collecting files and results across every harness on the platform.
- Resource model: Maritime provisions a persistent agent slot per customer; HarnessRouter executes isolated task runs.
- Cost model: Maritime bills monthly slots, including sleeping slots; HarnessRouter bills runs, so idle agents create no recurring charge.
- Evidence: public documentation was verified 2026-09-05; anything undocumented is treated as unknown, not absent.
What Maritime is
Maritime is an AI agent hosting platform. It documents five templates: Claude Code, OpenClaw, Hermes, ZeroClaw, and DeepSeek Harness. You can also deploy a container that implements its port, health, and chat contract. Each deployment gets a live API endpoint, durable storage, roughly one-second wake from sleep, triggers, file APIs, logs, and webhooks; channels attach at the project level.
Its primary multi-tenancy model provisions one persistent agent for each external customer ID, with separate state, secrets, and lifecycle. The instance retains memory and filesystem state between visits and sleeps when idle; isolation applies to the agent or customer instance, not a fresh environment for every task.
How Maritime prices, and how HarnessRouter differs
Maritime bills agent slots; HarnessRouter bills task runs.
- Maritime's Free plan includes three agents. Paid plans include 20 agents for $20, 100 for $100, or 500 for $500 per month, equal to $1 per included agent at full capacity.
- Additional agents cost $1.00 to $1.50 each per month depending on plan. Extra RAM, SSD, and always-on are separate add-ons.
- A slot is billed monthly even while asleep, not by messages, tokens, or awake seconds. Models are separate: bring a provider key or buy prepaid usage at provider list price.
- HarnessRouter bills per task run. Idle agents create no recurring charge, and continuity stays in durable sessions and files rather than a standing slot.
Shared ground and one scope boundary
Before scoring, note the operational baseline the products share:
- Managed operation
- Both offer managed hosting; teams do not need to size or patch servers.
- Programmatic access
- Both. Maritime provides a REST API plus TypeScript and Python SDKs; HarnessRouter provides one API callable from any language.
- Bring your own provider keys
- Both.
HarnessRouter and Maritime on the scored job
This table scores one buying job: running complete harnesses behind a product API with isolated execution, durable sessions and outputs, harness comparison, and harness switching without backend changes. A check marks a documented capability; an unmarked Maritime cell means it is not publicly documented for this job, not proven absent. Arbitrary-container support, GPUs, enterprise compliance, and total plan prices are outside the score.
| Dimension | HarnessRouter | Maritime |
|---|---|---|
| Complete harnesses through one shared task contract | YesEight harnesses, one create-and-run contract | NoFive templates and custom containers use shared chat and file APIs, but no cross-template task, run, and artifact schema is publicly documented |
| Per-run isolation inside the agent API | YesEvery Cloud run is isolated | NoThe documented isolation unit is an agent or customer instance |
| Sessions, streaming, files, artifacts, and traces as one contract | YesAll six are part of the run contract | NoConversation IDs, file APIs, logs, stream passthrough, and WebSockets are documented, but one cross-template contract covering all six is not publicly documented |
| Open runtime standard with a self-hostable implementation | YesUnified Harness Protocol, an open standard initiated by HarnessRouter, with an Apache-2.0 Community Edition | NoThe platform is proprietary, not open source; enterprise on-premises is available by contact |
| Task-level cost and trace comparison across harness and model | YesCompare harness and model on the same input | NoHosting uses flat slots; task-level cross-harness comparison is not publicly documented |
| Cost when an agent sits idle | YesNone; billing begins with a task run | NoThe monthly agent slot remains billed while asleep |
| Managed hosting plus an open, self-hostable runtime | YesHosted runtime plus an Apache-2.0 Community Edition you can self-host | NoManaged hosting and proprietary enterprise on-premises are available; no open, self-hostable runtime is documented |
In HarnessRouter's same-task benchmark, eight harness and model configurations performed identical work, and per-task cost varied by about 475x. The spread makes task-specific evaluation material to the decision.
Maritime alternatives compared: agent hosts and sandboxes
Scored for one job: running complete agent harnesses behind a product API. Managed hosting is common; Maritime and Blaxel offer deployable agent templates, while Runloop offers preconfigured agent mounts. The sandbox platforms support isolated execution. Only HarnessRouter documents all scored capabilities: one contract for switching harnesses, a cross-harness schema for sessions, artifacts, and traces, and automatic task-cost comparison. A no means the full column capability is not publicly documented, not that every component is absent.
| Platform | Managed hosting | Ready-to-run complete agents | Per-run isolation | One contract to run and switch harnesses | One cross-harness schema for sessions, artifacts, and traces | Automatic task-cost capture and comparison across harness and model | Open-source, self-hostable core |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HarnessRouter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Maritime | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| E2B | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Daytona | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Modal | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Cloudflare Agents | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Blaxel | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Runloop | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Beam | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Freestyle | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Vercel Sandbox | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Northflank | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Koyeb | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
General clouds such as AWS EC2, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Railway, and Fly.io can host agents that teams build and operate themselves, so they are outside this score. HarnessRouter is the only row with all seven scored capabilities.
FAQ
- What is the best Maritime alternative?
- The answer depends on the layer. HarnessRouter addresses cross-harness task execution through one API. Maritime addresses persistent per-customer agent hosting. E2B, Daytona, and Modal provide sandbox or compute primitives for teams building the agent layer.
- Is Maritime.sh really $1 per month?
- Only at full included capacity. The Free plan includes three agents, while paid service starts at $20 per month for 20 agents. Additional agents cost $1.00 to $1.50 each per month, and models, extra RAM, SSD, and always-on are separate.
- Is Maritime open source?
- No. Maritime's platform is proprietary, not open source. Enterprise on-premises deployment is available by contact. HarnessRouter offers an Apache-2.0 Community Edition that can be self-hosted.
- Does Maritime run complete agent harnesses?
- Yes. Maritime documents Claude Code, OpenClaw, Hermes, ZeroClaw, and DeepSeek Harness templates. A shared task, run, artifact, and trace contract across those templates is not publicly documented.
- Should you switch from Maritime to HarnessRouter?
- HarnessRouter supports workloads that run, compare, and switch complete harnesses through one contract with per-run isolation and portable sessions, artifacts, and traces. Maritime targets persistent per-customer agents.
- What is the difference between Maritime and HarnessRouter?
- Maritime hosts a persistent agent or customer instance that sleeps when idle. HarnessRouter executes isolated harness runs through one API and keeps continuity in durable sessions and files.
Compare harnesses on your own task
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