# Crush vs Emdash (slim)

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

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-emdash.md (~5,000 tokens) · this version ~1,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-emdash.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-emdash
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

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: D 49.8, rank #1082 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crush.min.md
- Emdash: D 53.9, rank #933 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/emdash.min.md
- Crush, 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 Free to start without a card.
- Emdash, 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 No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Crush loses 6 points for them.

| Category | Crush | Emdash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 52 | 55 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 55 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 52 | 55 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 41 | 38 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 55 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 82 | 70 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 54 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Crush | Emdash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Charm | General Action, Inc. |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | FSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available) | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-06 |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 5.6k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.3/5 (4) | none |

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.)