# Cursor CLI vs Pi (slim)

> Pi scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harness. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-earendil-pi.md (~2,200 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-earendil-pi.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-earendil-pi
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-08

Pi scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harness.

- Cursor CLI: F 35.3, rank #617 of 629 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.min.md
- Pi: B 68.4, rank #170 of 629 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/earendil-pi.min.md
- Cursor CLI, good for Teams already on Cursor who want the same agent and rules in a terminal or CI and a hand-off to Cloud Agents.
- Pi, good for Developers and pipelines that want a small, scriptable coding agent they can extend in TypeScript and drive over JSONL or RPC, inside their own container. Ahead on Reliability, 75 against 27; Schema & documentation, 84 against 39; Agent ergonomics, 76 against 42; Security & auth, 61 against 46; Payments & pricing, 60 against 25; Maintenance & community, 87 against 62; Transparency & trust, 64 against 59. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.

| Category | Cursor CLI | Pi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 27 | 75 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 39 | 84 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 42 | 76 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 46 | 61 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 25 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 62 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cursor CLI | Pi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cursor | Earendil |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-07 |
| 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 | 113k stars, 5.2M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | none |