# CLI Manager vs Rovo Dev CLI

> CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) to Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E) 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 Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on 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
- Rovo Dev CLI: grade E, 43.9/100, rank #1010 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rovo-dev-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/rovo-dev-cli.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 35
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 45
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 53
- Security & auth, 58 against 48
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 15

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 2.0 out of 5

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

### Rovo Dev CLI (E)

Good for: Teams already on Jira, Confluence and Bitbucket who want the agent to read and update work items and pages from the terminal or a pipeline.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 54

Watch for: Atlassian has announced end of life for standalone Rovo Dev, with the CLI moving to the Rovo CLI and no dates set


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | CLI Manager | Rovo Dev CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 35 | CLI Manager +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 45 | CLI Manager +42 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 53 | CLI Manager +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 48 | CLI Manager +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 15 | CLI Manager +45 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 61 | CLI Manager +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 61 | Rovo Dev CLI +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.8 · B** | **43.9 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CLI Manager | Rovo Dev CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | Atlassian |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary, under the Atlassian Customer Agreement (effective 1 October 2026) and the Atlassian AI Terms (effective 17 August 2026). No source is published |
| Tools exposed | 12 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 15 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 2/5 (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.

**Rovo Dev CLI.** Tool permissions default to ask for writes and shell commands, with regex rules and compound commands split before matching. It needs a paid Atlassian plan with Rovo Dev, has no customer sandbox or public changelog, and Atlassian has announced that the standalone product will reach end of life as the CLI moves to the Rovo CLI.

## 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

### Rovo Dev CLI

1. Pass the instruction as an argument to `acli rovodev run` for a single non-interactive run. No JSON output flag or exit codes are documented
2. Use `acli rovodev serve <port>` and stream `/v3/stream_chat?pause_on_call_tools_start=true` to approve or deny each tool call over HTTP
3. Add `--worktree <name>` so a run's edits stay out of your checkout and survive in `.rovodev/worktrees/<name>`
4. Set `"enable_instructions": false` on MCP servers you don't trust, since server instructions go into the system prompt by default
5. Check `/usage` before long runs. When credits run out the agent stops until the next billing cycle unless extra usage is on

## Questions

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

CLI Manager scores 65.8 (B) on agent readiness against Rovo Dev CLI's 43.9 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Rovo Dev CLI leads on transparency & trust.

### Are CLI Manager and Rovo Dev CLI open source?

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


## For agents

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

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