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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Antigravity CLI vs Cline

Cline scores 60.4 (C) on agent readiness against Antigravity CLI's 57.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antigravity CLI leads on agent ergonomics. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 186 harnesses comparisons

Antigravity CLIGoogle · Agent harness C57.7/100#599 of 954 ClineCline Bot Inc. · Agent harness C60.4/100#513 of 954

Which one, for what

Antigravity CLI C

Best for Developers on Google AI plans or Gemini Enterprise who want a terminal agent with a sandbox on by default and access to several model families, depending on plan.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 67

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Cline loses 8 points for them

Watch for

Closed source. The repository holds the README, changelog and examples, with no source and no licence file

Cline C

Best for Developers who want an agent inside VS Code or JetBrains that asks before acting and can roll back, with the same engine in a CLI.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 80 against 43
  • Payments & pricing, 50 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 68
  • Transparency & trust, 61 against 54

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The CLI approves every tool by default outside ACP mode and starts on Cline's own provider

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAntigravity CLIClineEdge
Reliability16%204380Cline +37
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27877Antigravity CLI +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.27867Antigravity CLI +11
Security & auth14%17.55357Cline +4
Payments & pricing10%12.53050Cline +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86885Cline +17
Transparency & trust7%8.85461Cline +7
Negative events≤150-8
TotalC 57.7/100C 60.4/100

Facts side by side

FactAntigravity CLICline
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorGoogleCline Bot Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary. The repository holds the README, changelog and examples, with no source and no licence file. Use is under the Google Antigravity Additional Terms of Service, the Google Terms of Service and the Privacy PolicyApache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-01
Terms last updated2025-09-25
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-012025-09-24
Customer content may train modelsyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularitynone68k stars
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (2)

Verdicts

Antigravity CLI

Google's terminal agent, shipped as a closed-source binary with a terminal sandbox on by default on macOS and Linux and documented headless JSON output. Interactions are used to improve Google products unless users opt out, and a headless run exits 0 when a tool is denied.

Cline

Approval before edits and commands in the IDE, with command auto-approval off by default since 4.0.0. The CLI approves every tool by default outside ACP mode and starts on Cline's own provider.

Before you call either

Antigravity CLI

  1. Read the status field from --output-format json and read stderr too. A tool refused for lack of approval still exits 0
  2. Pre-approve each shell command and tool a headless run needs with action(target) rules under permissions.allow in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/settings.json, because headless runs cannot ask
  3. Export GEMINI_API_KEY after setting modelProvider to gemini. The CLI won't start when the key is missing, and setting the variable alone has no effect
  4. Turn off Enable Telemetry in the Account settings before running on private repositories if Interactions should not be used for product improvement
  5. Set --print-timeout explicitly. The docs give a five-minute default, while agy --help shows 0s

Cline

  1. Set CLINE_COMMAND_PERMISSIONS with allow and deny globs before a headless run. The CLI approves every tool by default
  2. Pick a provider with -P and a key, or run cline auth. The default provider needs a Cline sign-in
  3. Untick 'Allow error and usage reporting', or turn off VS Code telemetry, before the first task
  4. Pin the CLI version. 2.3.0 was a malicious publish
  5. Keep the hub on 127.0.0.1 or set ROOM_SECRET, and run 3.0.30 or later

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Antigravity CLI or Cline?

Cline scores 60.4 (C) on agent readiness against Antigravity CLI's 57.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Antigravity CLI leads on agent ergonomics.

Are Antigravity CLI and Cline open source?

No open-source release is listed for Antigravity CLI. Cline is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Antigravity CLI or Cline

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