Head to head · Agent harness · October 2026 research run
Cursor CLI vs Kilo Code CLI
Kilo Code CLI scores 75.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harness.
Which one, for what
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.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No CLI changelog, and versions are dates
Good for Developers who want an open-source terminal agent with per-tool permission rules, an optional sandbox and a choice of provider, and the same engine in VS Code and JetBrains.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 85 against 27
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 39
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 42
- Security & auth, 66 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 59
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Cursor CLI loses 5 points for them
Watch for
Telemetry to PostHog is on by default, and the privacy policy and PRIVACY.md don't mention it
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Cursor CLI | Kilo Code CLI | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 27 | 85 | Kilo Code CLI +58 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 39 | 90 | Kilo Code CLI +51 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 42 | 72 | Kilo Code CLI +30 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 46 | 66 | Kilo Code CLI +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 25 | 50 | Kilo Code CLI +25 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 62 | 87 | Kilo Code CLI +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 59 | 76 | Kilo Code CLI +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| Total | 35.3 · F | 75.4 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Cursor CLI | Kilo Code CLI |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cursor | Kilo Code Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| 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 | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | 2026-09-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | 2026-05-29 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | none | 28k stars, 33k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | none |
Verdicts
Cursor CLI
Allow and deny rules for shell, reads, writes, web fetches and MCP tools, with deny taking precedence. No CLI changelog, and versions are dates.
Kilo Code CLI
Shell commands ask before running by default, and an optional operating-system sandbox blocks writes outside the workspace and outbound network. Telemetry to PostHog is on by default and the sandbox is off, so an unattended kilo run --auto approves everything not denied unless both are configured first.
Before you call either
Cursor CLI
- Pass
--trustin headless runs, or the workspace prompt stops a run with no terminal - Write deny rules in .cursor/cli.json before using
--force. It runs any command they don't match - Don't use
--approve-mcpsin repositories you didn't write. Two 2025 CLI advisories came through MCP - Set
CURSOR_API_KEYin CI.agent loginopens a browser - Record
agent --versionwith each run. Versions are dates and there's no CLI changelog to compare against
Kilo Code CLI
- Set
sandbox.enabledto true in the globalkilo.jsoncbeforekilo run --auto.--autoapproves every permission request not explicitly denied - Set
experimental.openTelemetryto false, orKILO_TELEMETRY_LEVELto a value other thanall, to stop telemetry - Add needed hosts to
sandbox.allowed_hostsin global config. MCP tool calls are unavailable while network restriction is on - Without
--autoa non-interactive run rejects every permission prompt and exits 1 - Put provider keys in global config or the environment.
{env:VAR}in a projectkilo.jsonis ignored
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Cursor CLI or Kilo Code CLI?
Kilo Code CLI scores 75.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.
Are Cursor CLI and Kilo Code CLI open source?
No open-source release is listed for Cursor CLI. Kilo Code CLI is open source (MIT).
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- Gemini CLI vs Kilo Code CLI
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- goose vs Kilo Code CLI
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- Kilo Code CLI vs OpenCode
- Kilo Code CLI vs OpenHands
- Kilo Code CLI vs Prime Agent
- Kilo Code CLI vs Qwen Code
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/cursor-cli-vs-kilo-code-cli.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json·/api/v1/tools/kilo-code-cli.json - From a terminal
anchor compare cursor-cli kilo-code-cli(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "cursor-cli", "b": "kilo-code-cli"}at/mcp, no key