# Crush vs Emdash

> Emdash scores 53.9 (D) to Crush's 49.8 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-emdash
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-emdash.md (~5,000 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Emdash scores 53.9 (D) on agent readiness against Crush's 49.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Crush: grade D, 49.8/100, rank #1082 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crush.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/crush.json
- Emdash: grade D, 53.9/100, rank #933 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/emdash.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/emdash.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 1500 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Crush (D)

Good for: Developers who want a Go terminal agent with a wide provider list, local models and Claude Code-compatible hooks.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 55
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 70
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: `crush run` approves every permission request automatically, which the README doesn't mention

### Emdash (D)

Good for: Developers who want parallel agents in worktrees, fed from their issue tracker, locally or over SSH.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 55

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Crush loses 6 points for them

Watch for: Telemetry on unless turned off in Settings or with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Crush +12

- Crush (82): v0.99.0 tagged on 29 October 2026 (6 days, 30). 21 release tags from 7 August to 29 October, v0.88.1 to v0.99.0, besides a moving `nightly` tag that isn't counted (20). The 18 October shields.io counts are struck. The repository's refs show 147 merges into main and 438 commits in the 90 days to 4 November, with 272 open pull requests carrying a merge ref, and new contributors signing the CLA most days. Reply times couldn't be read (12). No SDK, as with other harnesses. npm, Homebrew, Winget, Scoop, apt, yum and NUR builds come from the release workflow (12, held partial). Dependabot, a `go mod tidy` check in CI and nightly security scans, with CI results unread (8). 30 + 20 + 12 + 12 + 8 = 82.
- Emdash (70): v1.2.11 on 6 November 2026 (30). v1.2.9, v1.2.10 and v1.2.11 within two weeks (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current installers and Homebrew cask (15). Release workflows, no test CI (5). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 70.

### Schema & documentation: Crush +10

- Crush (65): Harness reading of the framework line. A JSON Schema for the config at https://charm.land/crush.json (also printed by `crush schema`), `--json` on the session commands, and an OpenAPI document that `crush server` generates from its endpoint list and serves at `/v1/docs/openapi.json`, which isn't published anywhere we could fetch. `crush run` output has no typed form (20). No llms.txt (charm.land/llms.txt is a not-found page). The docs are Markdown in the repository and the hooks guide says it was written for humans and agents (5). The README and config docs explain when to allow, deny or hook a tool and warn that configs run as code (12). The schema carries enums and defaults, such as the attribution trailer style, while permissions take bare tool names with no command patterns (11). Many examples for providers, MCP, hooks and local models, with no reference for error messages or exit codes (9). Version tags and GitHub releases with generated notes, which we couldn't open, and no changelog file (8).
- Emdash (55): Harness reading. Docs site and a workspace server package (55).

### Payments & pricing: Emdash +5

- Crush (55): No payment protocol (0). Scored on Charm's Hyper provider. Its public provider file at hyper.charm.land/v1/provider lists per-million-token figures for 22 models without a login, but no pricing page confirms them as billed rates, and plan prices sit in a script-rendered app (15). The CLI is free to use and runs with your own provider key or a local model, so nothing needs a card (20). A local model through Ollama, llama.cpp or LM Studio, or an existing provider key in the environment, works with no Charm account, so an agent can install it and run a task without a person signing up (20).
- Emdash (60): Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy, so 0 for a protocol and 20 each for public pricing, a free tier and onboarding with no sign-up, 60.

### Transparency & trust: Crush +5

- Crush (59): FSL-1.1-MIT, source-available, barring competing commercial use and converting each release to MIT on its second anniversary. Code from before 30 May 2025 is MIT. Not an OSI licence today (20). No privacy policy or terms for Crush were found on charm.land, and Hyper's legal pages render by script and weren't read. The README says Hyper is zero-data-retention, while Hyper's own app says some plans aren't and that usage on them may train Hyper's models, so the statements don't agree (8). The JSON config is marked deprecated with no removal date, and no deprecation policy was found (6). The README discloses usage metrics, links the source, says prompts aren't collected and gives two opt-outs, but doesn't mention the alias to the Hyper account (15).
- Emdash (54): Apache 2.0 (30). A telemetry page on the docs site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Crush | Emdash | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 52 | 55 | Emdash +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 55 | Crush +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 55 | Emdash +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 41 | 38 | Crush +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 55 | 60 | Emdash +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 70 | Crush +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 54 | Crush +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.8 · D** | **53.9 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Crush | Emdash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Charm | General Action, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | FSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available) | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 5.6k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.3/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Crush

- -6.9 on 4 November 2026 (C to D): security, correction
- +0.2 on 27 October 2026: new evidence

### Emdash

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Crush.** Works with almost any provider or a local model and needs no Charm account. `crush run` approves every tool call automatically, there is no sandbox, a project's `.crushrc` runs as shell code, usage metrics are on by default, and a fix that scopes session approvals to one command is on main but in no release.

**Emdash.** A mature open-source app for parallel coding agents in Git worktrees, with issue intake from a dozen trackers and remote machines over SSH. Telemetry is on unless you turn it off, and no test workflow was found in the repository.

## Before you call either

### Crush

1. Add `permissions deny` rules or a PreToolUse hook before `crush run`. It approves every permission request in its session, and a session approval in v0.99.0 covers later commands in the same directory
2. Read `.crushrc`, `crushrc` and `crush.json` in a cloned repository before running Crush there. They execute as shell code at startup
3. Set `CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop usage metrics to data.charm.land
4. Wrap `crush run` in your own timeout. It has no turn, time or cost limit flag
5. Configure a provider by environment variable or `crushrc` first. With none, `crush run` exits with an error asking for interactive setup

### Emdash

1. Launch with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false if you don't want telemetry
2. Use the SSH mode to keep agents on a remote machine

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Crush or Emdash?

Emdash scores 53.9 (D) on agent readiness against Crush's 49.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Are Crush and Emdash open source?

No open-source release is listed for Crush. Emdash is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

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---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp