# Cursor CLI vs Mistral Vibe CLI

> Mistral Vibe CLI scores 62.9 (B) to Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-18

Mistral Vibe CLI scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Cursor CLI: grade F, 35.3/100, rank #1085 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json
- Mistral Vibe CLI: grade B, 62.9/100, rank #457 of 1146. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mistral-vibe-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mistral-vibe-cli.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 713 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cursor CLI (F)

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.

Watch for: No CLI changelog, and versions are dates

### Mistral Vibe CLI (B)

Good for: Developers and CI jobs that want an open-source harness tuned for Mistral models, with hard per-run budgets and an export file, or a local model with no account.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 69 against 27
- Schema & documentation, 76 against 39
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 42
- Security & auth, 58 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 79 against 59

Also in its favour:
- Open source
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.3 against 1.5 out of 5

Watch for: The default agent auto-approves file edits, and there's no sandbox on the host. Isolation needs the experimental `--agent-socket` server or a container


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor CLI | Mistral Vibe CLI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 27 | 69 | Mistral Vibe CLI +42 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 39 | 76 | Mistral Vibe CLI +37 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 84 | Mistral Vibe CLI +42 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 58 | Mistral Vibe CLI +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | Mistral Vibe CLI +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 75 | Mistral Vibe CLI +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 79 | Mistral Vibe CLI +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **35.3 · F** | **62.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor CLI | Mistral Vibe CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cursor | Mistral AI |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-09 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | 2026-09-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-03 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 5.1k stars, 332k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | 3.3/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Mistral Vibe CLI.** Apache-2.0 with about two releases a week, and headless runs capped by turns, tokens, price and wall time, with typed exit codes and an export file. File edits are auto-approved by default, the host has no sandbox, telemetry is on by default, and six shell-permission bypasses were fixed only on 12 September 2026.

## Before you call either

### Cursor CLI

1. Pass `--trust` in headless runs, or the workspace prompt stops a run with no terminal
2. Write deny rules in .cursor/cli.json before using `--force`. It runs any command they don't match
3. Don't use `--approve-mcps` in repositories you didn't write. Two 2025 CLI advisories came through MCP
4. Set `CURSOR_API_KEY` in CI. `agent login` opens a browser
5. Record `agent --version` with each run. Versions are dates and there's no CLI changelog to compare against

### Mistral Vibe CLI

1. Pass `--agent` on every `-p` run (`plan` is read-only). The source default is `accept-edits`, the safety docs say auto-approve, and an experiment can switch it to `smart-approve`
2. Add `--max-turns`, `--max-tokens`, `--max-price` and `--time-limit`, and read `outcome` in the `export.json` that `--output-dir` writes. Exit 3 means a limit or a refusal
3. Run in a container or behind `--agent-socket` before using `--auto-approve`. Vibe has no sandbox of its own on the host
4. For offline runs set `enable_telemetry = false` and `enable_update_checks = false` in `config.toml`. The docs' `enable_auto_update` isn't the key the code reads
5. Use 2.25.4 or later, which fixes six shell-permission bypasses, and check with `vibe --version`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cursor CLI or Mistral Vibe CLI?

Mistral Vibe CLI scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Cursor CLI and Mistral Vibe CLI open source?

No open-source release is listed for Cursor CLI. Mistral Vibe CLI is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

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