# Agent Zero vs Cursor CLI

> Agent Zero scores 54.2 (C) to Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-12

Agent Zero scores 54.2 (C) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.

- Agent Zero: grade C, 54.2/100, rank #709 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-zero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-zero.json
- Cursor CLI: grade F, 35.3/100, rank #965 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 205 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Agent Zero (C)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an agent with its own Linux machine, reachable from Telegram, WhatsApp or email, with scheduled tasks and editable memory.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 57 against 27
- Schema & documentation, 64 against 39
- Agent ergonomics, 62 against 42
- Security & auth, 54 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 62

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No approval step before shell commands, file changes or outgoing messages. Tool Access defaults to allow

### Cursor CLI (F)

Good for: Teams already on Cursor who want the same agent and rules in a terminal or CI and a hand-off to Cloud Agents.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No CLI changelog, and versions are dates


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Agent Zero | Cursor CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 27 | Agent Zero +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 39 | Agent Zero +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 42 | Agent Zero +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 46 | Agent Zero +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 25 | Agent Zero +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 62 | Agent Zero +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 59 | Cursor CLI +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **54.2 · C** | **35.3 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Agent Zero | Cursor CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agent Zero, s.r.o. | Cursor |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-03 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-29 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 19k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 1.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Agent Zero.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with nine releases in the 90 days to 12 October 2026 and breaking changes listed in the release notes. The agent runs shell commands in its container with no approval step, the web interface has no login by default, and five CVEs from the past year have no published GitHub advisory.

**Cursor CLI.** Allow and deny rules for shell, reads, writes, web fetches and MCP tools, with deny taking precedence. No CLI changelog, and versions are dates.

## Before you call either

### Agent Zero

1. Set a UI login and password in Settings before publishing the port or opening a tunnel. The default has none
2. Fill `allowed_users`, `allowed_numbers` or `sender_whitelist` before enabling a channel. An empty list accepts every sender
3. Enable the Infection Check plugin when the agent reads mail, web pages or MCP results. It ships disabled
4. Run v2.12 or later. It fixes a Telegram webhook authentication bypass and a WhatsApp media path traversal
5. Call `POST /api_message` with the `X-API-KEY` header. The token changes when the UI login or password changes

### Cursor CLI

1. Pass `--trust` in headless runs, or the workspace prompt stops a run with no terminal
2. Write deny rules in .cursor/cli.json before using `--force`. It runs any command they don't match
3. Don't use `--approve-mcps` in repositories you didn't write. Two 2025 CLI advisories came through MCP
4. Set `CURSOR_API_KEY` in CI. `agent login` opens a browser
5. Record `agent --version` with each run. Versions are dates and there's no CLI changelog to compare against

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Agent Zero or Cursor CLI?

Agent Zero scores 54.2 (C) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Are Agent Zero and Cursor CLI open source?

Agent Zero is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Cursor CLI.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agent-zero", "b": "cursor-cli"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agent-zero cursor-cli`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-zero.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json

## Other comparisons with Agent Zero or Cursor CLI

- [Agent Zero vs Aider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-aider.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Amp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-amp.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Antigravity CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-antigravity-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Claude Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-claude-code.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Cline](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cline.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-devin.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-goose.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-opencode.md)
- [Agent Zero vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-openhands.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-qwen-code.md)
- [Aider vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Claude Code vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Cline vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-devin.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-earendil-pi.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Gemini CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-gemini-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs GitHub Copilot CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-github-copilot-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-goose.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Kilo Code CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-kilo-code-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Kiro CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-kiro-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs OpenAI Codex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openai-codex.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-opencode.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openhands.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Prime Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-prime-agent.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Qwen Code](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-qwen-code.md)