# Cursor CLI vs OpenCode

> OpenCode has a score of 68 (B) against Cursor CLI's 35.8 (F). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 49 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

OpenCode has a score of 68 (B) against Cursor CLI's 35.8 (F). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 49 points.

- Cursor CLI: grade F, 35.8/100, rank #441 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json
- OpenCode: grade B, 68/100, rank #134 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/opencode.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/opencode.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Cursor CLI for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick OpenCode for reliability (+41), schema & documentation (+49), agent ergonomics (+37), security & auth (+14), payments & pricing (+35), maintenance & community (+19), transparency & trust (+7).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor CLI | OpenCode | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 27 | 68 | OpenCode +41 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 39 | 88 | OpenCode +49 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 79 | OpenCode +37 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 60 | OpenCode +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | OpenCode +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 81 | OpenCode +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 71 | OpenCode +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **35.8 · F** | **68 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor CLI | OpenCode |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cursor | Anomaly |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| 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 |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | none | 211k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |

## 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.

**OpenCode.** Runs with no key or account on free OpenCode Zen models. Most permissions default to allow, and SECURITY.md says the permission system is not a sandbox.

## 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

### OpenCode

1. Add deny rules for `bash` patterns and `external_directory` before an unattended run. Most tools default to allow
2. Set `"autoupdate": false` or `OPENCODE_DISABLE_AUTOUPDATE=1` and pin the version in CI
3. Configure a provider key. With none, prompts go to free Zen models that may train on them
4. Set `OPENCODE_SERVER_PASSWORD` before `opencode serve`. Without it the server runs unauthenticated
5. Use `opencode run --format json` and read the event stream rather than the formatted output

## Other comparisons with Cursor CLI or OpenCode

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- [Aider vs OpenCode](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-opencode.md)
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- [OpenCode vs OpenHands](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencode-vs-openhands.md)