# Cursor CLI vs OpenHands

> OpenHands has a score of 70.9 (BB) against Cursor CLI's 35.8 (F). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is reliability, 56 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openhands
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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-openhands.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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
- Updated: 2026-10-04

OpenHands has a score of 70.9 (BB) against Cursor CLI's 35.8 (F). Both do agent harness. The largest gap is reliability, 56 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
- OpenHands: grade BB, 70.9/100, rank #92 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openhands.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openhands.json

## Which one, for what

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

Pick OpenHands for reliability (+56), schema & documentation (+48), agent ergonomics (+36), security & auth (+20), payments & pricing (+35), maintenance & community (+23), transparency & trust (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor CLI | OpenHands | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 27 | 83 | OpenHands +56 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 39 | 87 | OpenHands +48 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 78 | OpenHands +36 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 66 | OpenHands +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | OpenHands +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 85 | OpenHands +23 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 69 | OpenHands +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **35.8 · F** | **70.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor CLI | OpenHands |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cursor | All Hands 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 | MIT (Agent Canvas, SDK, tools and Agent Server). OpenHands Cloud is a hosted service |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | none | 90k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (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.

**OpenHands.** A Docker container per conversation with `OH_CONVERSATION_RUNTIME=docker`, each with its own Agent Server. Confirmation mode is off by default in Agent Canvas, and the npm install gives the agent the host's whole filesystem.

## 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

### OpenHands

1. Set `AGENT_CANVAS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1` and `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first start
2. Start Canvas with `OH_CONVERSATION_RUNTIME=docker` or use the Docker image. The npm install runs the agent on the host
3. Turn on confirmation mode with a risk threshold. Canvas starts with it off
4. Use the SDK or the Agent Server API for headless runs. The `openhands --headless` CLI is no longer maintained
5. Set `filter_tools_regex` on the agent to keep unneeded MCP tool definitions out of the context

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