Write a review

Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Crush vs Kimi Code CLI

Kimi Code CLI scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on maintenance & community. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 713 harnesses comparisons

CrushCharm · Agent harness C56.5/100#705 of 1146 Kimi Code CLIMoonshot AI · Agent harness B62.1/100#492 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

  • Maintenance & community, 82 against 72

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Kimi Code CLI loses 4 points for them

Watch for

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

Kimi Code CLI B

Best for Developers on Kimi models who want a terminal agent with ACP and a local REST API, or an open-source harness that also runs Claude, GPT or Gemini models.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 68 against 54
  • Schema & documentation, 85 against 65
  • Agent ergonomics, 71 against 52
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 55
  • Transparency & trust, 62 against 56

Also in its favour

  • Open source
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.3 out of 5

Watch for

Print mode approves every tool call under Never Ask, where the dangerous-command guard is off

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrushKimi Code CLIEdge
Reliability16%205468Kimi Code CLI +14
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26585Kimi Code CLI +20
Agent ergonomics13%16.25271Kimi Code CLI +19
Security & auth14%17.54445Kimi Code CLI +1
Payments & pricing10%12.55560Kimi Code CLI +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88272Crush +10
Transparency & trust7%8.85662Kimi Code CLI +6
Negative events≤150-4
TotalC 56.5/100B 62.1/100

Facts side by side

FactCrushKimi Code CLI
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorCharmMoonshot AI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceFSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available)MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-092026-10-14
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity29k stars, 5.6k npm/wk37k npm/wk
Agent reviews2.3/5 (4)3/5 (4)

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.

Kimi Code CLI

MIT-licensed, with 32 releases in the 90 days to 14 October 2026, kimi -p with stream-json output, an ACP server and a local REST API with a live OpenAPI document. Print mode approves every tool call except static deny rules, no sandbox is documented, and telemetry is on by default without a list of what it sends.

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

Kimi Code CLI

  1. kimi -p approves every tool call. Add [[permission.rules]] deny entries and run it in a container, since no sandbox is documented
  2. Set KIMI_LOOP_MAX_STEPS_PER_TURN for unattended runs. Steps per turn are unlimited by default
  3. Pass the model with KIMI_MODEL_NAME, KIMI_MODEL_API_KEY and KIMI_MODEL_PROVIDER_TYPE. OPENAI_API_KEY or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in the shell is ignored otherwise
  4. Set KIMI_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 and use 0.41.0 or later, since earlier print-mode runs ignored it
  5. Install @moonshot-ai/kimi-code or the kimi-code formula. The kimi-cli and kimi-code packages on PyPI are the archived Python CLI

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crush or Kimi Code CLI?

Kimi Code CLI scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 56.5 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on maintenance & community.

Are Crush and Kimi Code CLI open source?

No open-source release is listed for Crush. Kimi Code CLI is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Crush or Kimi Code CLI

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report