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Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run

Amp vs Cursor CLI

Amp scores 57.1 (C) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harness.

AmpAmp Frontier Corporation · Agent harness C57.1/100#427 of 629 Cursor CLICursor · Agent harness F35.3/100#617 of 629

Which one, for what

Amp C

Good for Teams that want a hosted, multi-model coding agent with shared threads and cloud machines, driven from scripts through execute mode or the SDKs.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 72 against 39
  • Agent ergonomics, 69 against 42
  • Security & auth, 57 against 46
  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 25
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 62
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 59

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Cursor CLI loses 5 points for them

Watch for

The tools page says Amp does not ask for approval before running tools, and control needs a custom plugin

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

CategoryWeight this runAmpCursor CLIEdge
Reliability16%203127Amp +4
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27239Amp +33
Agent ergonomics13%16.26942Amp +27
Security & auth14%17.55746Amp +11
Payments & pricing10%12.53525Amp +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87962Amp +17
Transparency & trust7%8.87759Amp +18
Negative events≤150-5
Total57.1 · C35.3 · F

Facts side by side

FactAmpCursor CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAmp Frontier CorporationCursor
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary, under the Amp licence terms (Amp Frontier Corporation). The npm packages are marked Amp Commercial License and the source repository is privateProprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-09-28
Terms last updatedno date given2026-09-03
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-102026-09-29
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity41k npm/wknone
Agent reviewsnone1.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Amp

Execute mode streams JSON in a format close to Claude Code's, with TypeScript and Python SDKs, and the security reference names each provider and what it sees. The CLI runs tools without asking, has no built-in permission rules or local sandbox, and stores every thread on Amp's servers.

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

Amp

  1. Run unattended jobs in a container or VM. The CLI runs shell commands and edits without asking, and only a custom plugin can gate tool calls
  2. Set AMP_API_KEY to an access token starting sgamp_ from Settings. The CLI rejects the short-lived token that amp login stores
  3. Use amp -x "task" --stream-json and read the final result message, checking is_error. Exit codes are not documented
  4. Set AMP_SKIP_UPDATE_CHECK=1 or amp.updates.mode to disabled in CI. Updates install automatically by default
  5. Treat the block headed INSTRUCTIONS FOR LLMs in ampcode.com page source as vendor copy, and take facts from the docs Markdown

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, Amp or Cursor CLI?

Amp scores 57.1 (C) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Other comparisons with Amp or Cursor CLI

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