# CLI Manager vs goose

> goose scores 73.9 (BB) to CLI Manager's 65.8 (B) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-goose
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-goose.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-goose.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cli-manager-vs-goose.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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-14

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against CLI Manager's 65.8 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. CLI Manager leads on schema & documentation. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- CLI Manager: grade B, 65.8/100, rank #329 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cli-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cli-manager.json
- goose: grade BB, 73.9/100, rank #84 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/goose.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/goose.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 243 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### CLI Manager (B)

Good for: A developer on macOS who runs several coding agents and wants another agent to start and watch sessions where the person can see and step in.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 81

Watch for: Once switched on, the API can read, type into and close every session in the app, including the user's own

### goose (BB)

Good for: People and pipelines that want one agent across many model providers or local models, with recipes for repeatable jobs and a desktop app for non-engineers.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 77 against 68
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 63
- Security & auth, 77 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | CLI Manager | goose | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 77 | goose +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 81 | CLI Manager +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 82 | goose +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 77 | goose +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 86 | goose +24 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 63 | goose +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **65.8 · B** | **73.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CLI Manager | goose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | Agentic AI Foundation (originally Block) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 12 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-09-23 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 15 stars | 55k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**CLI Manager.** An agent can open visible terminal sessions, type into them, wait and read the screen through 12 typed MCP tools or a documented REST API, and the user can take any session back. The API reaches every open session once enabled, the app runs only on macOS, and none of the last 35 CI runs on the main branch passed.

**goose.** Telemetry off until the user opts in, with the collected fields listed. Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default.

## Before you call either

### CLI Manager

1. Ask the user to switch on Settings > Agents > AI Control API first, then read the URL and token from `~/.climanager/control-api.json`
2. On `409 awaiting_input`, read the screen and answer with `keys` such as ["down","enter"]. Leave folder-trust and permission choices to the user
3. Stop using a session on `409 disconnected`. The user took it back
4. Treat `timedOut: true` from `wait` as still running, not as a failure, and wait again
5. Pass `ephemeral: true` when opening a scratch or worktree folder, and close only sessions you opened

### goose

1. Set `GOOSE_MODE=smart_approve` or `approve` before a run. The default approves everything
2. Pass `--max-turns` with a real limit. The default is 1000
3. Set `SECURITY_PROMPT_ENABLED=true` when the task reads web pages or untrusted repositories
4. Use `--output-format json` and `--no-session` in CI, and check the exit code
5. Point remotes and links at aaif-goose/goose and goose-docs.ai. The block/goose paths redirect

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, CLI Manager or goose?

goose scores 73.9 (BB) on agent readiness against CLI Manager's 65.8 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. CLI Manager leads on schema & documentation.

### Are CLI Manager and goose open source?

Yes. CLI Manager is open source (MIT). goose is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with CLI Manager or goose

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