# CLI Manager vs Junie CLI

> CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) to Junie CLI's 53.2 (D) for multi-agent orchestration. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 53.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

- CLI Manager: grade B, 65.8/100, rank #342 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cli-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cli-manager.json
- Junie CLI: grade D, 53.2/100, rank #804 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/junie.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/junie.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 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:
- Reliability, 68 against 45
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 62
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 55
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 42

Also in its favour:
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Junie CLI loses 3 points for them

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

### Junie CLI (D)

Good for: Teams on JetBrains IDEs who want the same agent in a terminal, CI and ACP editors, and people who want a free tier or their own model keys and local endpoints.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 54

Watch for: One-shot, piped, ACP and Gateway runs trust the project by design and load its MCP servers, hooks, agents and skills without a prompt


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | CLI Manager | Junie CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 45 | CLI Manager +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 62 | CLI Manager +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 55 | CLI Manager +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 56 | CLI Manager +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 42 | CLI Manager +18 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 72 | Junie CLI +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 78 | Junie CLI +24 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **65.8 · B** | **53.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CLI Manager | Junie CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | JetBrains |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, JetBrains s.r.o., all rights reserved, under the JetBrains AI Terms of Service. The GitHub repository holds the README, release binaries and the issue tracker, not source |
| Tools exposed | 12 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | 2026-06-12 |
| 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 | 487 stars, 3.2k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 2.8/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Junie CLI.** Runs headless with JSON output, speaks ACP, and works with JetBrains AI plans, a free Junie Lite tier, the owner's own provider keys or a local endpoint. Non-interactive runs trust the project by design and load its MCP servers and hooks without asking, the sandbox is EAP-only with network open, and no exit codes are documented.

## 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

### Junie CLI

1. Run headless only in repositories you trust. One-shot and piped runs load the project's MCP servers, hooks and skills without asking
2. Set `JUNIE_API_KEY` (from junie.jetbrains.com/cli) or a provider key such as `JUNIE_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` in CI. The default sign-in opens a browser
3. Add `--output-format json` or `--json-output-file` to parse results. Check the output, since exit codes aren't documented
4. Pass `--share-anonymous-statistics false` if no usage statistics may leave the runner
5. Pin a build with `--use-version` and `--skip-update-check`. The CLI updates itself on start by default

## Questions

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

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 53.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Are CLI Manager and Junie CLI open source?

CLI Manager is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Junie CLI.


## For agents

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

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