# Cursor Agent SDK vs guilds.run

> Cursor Agent SDK scores 63.6 (B) to guilds.run's 56.5 (C) for agent frameworks. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: 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)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-27

Cursor Agent SDK scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against guilds.run's 56.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. guilds.run leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do agent frameworks.

- Cursor Agent SDK: grade B, 63.6/100, rank #443 of 1217. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-agent-sdk.json
- guilds.run: grade C, 56.5/100, rank #732 of 1217. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/guilds-run.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/guilds-run.json
- Best agent frameworks and SDKs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/frameworks/index.md
- All 78 frameworks comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/frameworks/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cursor Agent SDK (B)

Good for: Teams already on Cursor who want version-controlled agents for pull request review, triage and Slack, with evals in CI and one-command hosting.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 67
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 41
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 52

Watch for: Closed source under Cursor's terms, with no public repository, CI or issue tracker

### guilds.run (C)

Good for: A person or small team that wants a standing, inspectable team of agents with schedules, shared tables and a web app, run on one machine, and is comfortable tracking main.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 53 against 45
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30

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

Watch for: No tagged release, version number, changelog or published image. Users install whatever is on main


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor Agent SDK | guilds.run | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 53 | guilds.run +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 58 | Cursor Agent SDK +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 67 | Cursor Agent SDK +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 68 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | guilds.run +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 41 | Cursor Agent SDK +33 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 52 | Cursor Agent SDK +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **63.6 · B** | **56.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor Agent SDK | guilds.run |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Cursor | Cigale AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Your plan | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary. The package's LICENSE.md reads "© Anysphere Inc. All rights reserved", with use subject to Cursor's Terms of Service (updated 3 September 2026). No source repository is published | AGPL-3.0-only |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-25 | none |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | none | 57 stars |

## Verdicts

**Cursor Agent SDK.** An agent-as-code framework with typed tools, declared read and write effects that drive retries and dry runs, an approval gate per tool and evals that assert on tool calls. It's closed source, every model turn runs through Cursor's backend on a Cursor plan, local sandboxing is off by default, and the changelog has two entries.

**guilds.run.** A self-hosted multi-agent system that records each run's prompt, tool calls and memory changes, with per-agent models and tools and no telemetry by default. Public since 9 October 2026, it has no tagged release or published package, its own security register lists 13 open issues, and the site's terms and privacy links return 404.

## Before you call either

### Cursor Agent SDK

1. Install `@grok/agent-sdk`, not `@cursor/agent-sdk` from the launch post. That name answers 404 on npm
2. Set `local.sandbox` before a turn reads webhook payloads, pull request diffs or chat. Without it shell commands auto-approve with the host's credentials
3. Give every tool an `effect`. A tool without one counts as a write, runs once and is stubbed in dry runs
4. Start `agent-sdk serve` with `--bearer-token` on any shared host. `--allow-anonymous` admits every caller as one principal
5. Delete bot/hooks/memory.ts when sessions serve different people. The journal shares each turn's message and result with later turns

### guilds.run

1. Keep the box on loopback or behind an authenticating proxy with AUTH_MODE=trusted-header. The default mode does not authenticate
2. Put agents that hold different secrets or GitHub tokens on different machines. Agents on one machine can read each other's homes and tokens
3. Back up the .env file written by ./setup.sh. It holds the only copy of the key that encrypts stored credentials
4. Set a spend limit at your model provider. guilds.run sets no spend cap, and max_tool_calls defaults to 50 per run
5. Pin a commit of main when you deploy. There are no tagged releases or versioned images yet

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cursor Agent SDK or guilds.run?

Cursor Agent SDK scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against guilds.run's 56.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. guilds.run leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Are Cursor Agent SDK and guilds.run open source?

No open-source release is listed for Cursor Agent SDK. guilds.run is open source (AGPL-3.0-only).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Cursor Agent SDK or guilds.run

- [AgentOS vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [AgentOS vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentos-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Agno vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Agno vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agno-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [Claude Agent SDK vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [CrewAI vs Cursor Agent SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-cursor-agent-sdk.md)
- [CrewAI vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crewai-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Docker Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-docker-agent.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-google-adk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-langgraph.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [Cursor Agent SDK vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-agent-sdk-vs-tradingagents.md)
- [Docker Agent vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-agent-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [Agent Development Kit (ADK) vs guilds.run](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-adk-vs-guilds-run.md)
- [guilds.run vs LangGraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-langgraph.md)
- [guilds.run vs Microsoft Agent Framework](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-microsoft-agent-framework.md)
- [guilds.run vs OpenAI Agents SDK](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-openai-agents-sdk.md)
- [guilds.run vs Pydantic AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-pydantic-ai.md)
- [guilds.run vs TradingAgents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guilds-run-vs-tradingagents.md)

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