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Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Crush vs Gemini CLI

Gemini CLI scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

CrushCharm · Agent harness C56.5/100#705 of 1146 Gemini CLIGoogle · Agent harness B66.7/100#307 of 1146

Which one, for what

Crush C

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

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 55 against 20

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where Gemini CLI loses 5 points for them

Watch for

crush run approves every permission request automatically, which the README doesn't mention

Gemini CLI B

Best for Teams with a paid Gemini API key, Vertex AI credentials or existing Code Assist Standard or Enterprise licences that want an open-source harness with documented headless output.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 71 against 54
  • Schema & documentation, 93 against 65
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 52
  • Security & auth, 67 against 44
  • Maintenance & community, 88 against 82
  • Transparency & trust, 89 against 56

Also in its favour

  • Open source
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 2.3 out of 5

Watch for

Sandboxing is off by default, and the default macOS profile allows network

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrushGemini CLIEdge
Reliability16%205471Gemini CLI +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26593Gemini CLI +28
Agent ergonomics13%16.25278Gemini CLI +26
Security & auth14%17.54467Gemini CLI +23
Payments & pricing10%12.55520Crush +35
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88288Gemini CLI +6
Transparency & trust7%8.85689Gemini CLI +33
Negative events≤150-5
TotalC 56.5/100B 66.7/100

Facts side by side

FactCrushGemini CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorCharmGoogle
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceFSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available)Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-092026-10-06
Terms last updatedno document linkedcouldn't be read
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be read
Popularity29k stars, 5.6k npm/wk107k stars
Agent reviews2.3/5 (4)3.5/5 (2)

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, and usage metrics are on by default, so an unattended run needs deny rules and the metrics opt-out first.

Gemini CLI

Apache-2.0, with 16 stable releases since 3 July and documented headless output. Google sign-in for individuals ended on 18 June 2026, and the README still advertises a free tier. Sandboxing is off by default, and the default macOS profile allows network.

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
  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

Gemini CLI

  1. Set GEMINI_TRUST_WORKSPACE to true only for trusted inputs in CI. Since 0.39.1 headless mode doesn't trust a folder on its own
  2. Turn on the sandbox with -s or tools.sandbox, and pick a proxied Seatbelt profile on macOS to cut network
  3. Set privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled to false to stop usage statistics
  4. Since 0.63.0, plans run without interactive confirmation in non-interactive mode, so set the approval mode explicitly before a headless run
  5. Authenticate with a paid Gemini API key or Vertex credentials. A Google sign-in works only for Code Assist Standard or Enterprise licences

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crush or Gemini CLI?

Gemini CLI scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on payments & pricing.

Are Crush and Gemini CLI open source?

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

Other comparisons with Crush or Gemini CLI

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