# Cursor CLI vs Orca (slim)

> Orca scores 57.4 (C) to Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-orca.md (~5,050 tokens) · this version ~1,830 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-orca.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-orca
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Orca scores 57.4 (C) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cursor CLI leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Cursor CLI: F 35.4, rank #1374 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.min.md
- Orca: C 57.4, rank #791 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orca.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. Ahead on Transparency & trust, 60 against 54. Also Free to start without a card.
- Orca, good for Developers who want an orchestrator agent to split work across parallel coding agents, on desktop or mobile. Ahead on Reliability, 58 against 27; Schema & documentation, 65 against 39; Agent ergonomics, 70 against 42; Payments & pricing, 40 against 25; Maintenance & community, 75 against 62. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Cursor CLI loses 5 points for them.

| Category | Cursor CLI | Orca |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 27 | 58 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 39 | 65 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 42 | 70 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 46 | 43 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 25 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 62 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 60 | 54 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cursor CLI | Orca |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cursor | Lovecast Inc. |
| 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 | 2026-11-06 |
| 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 | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Orca +31: Cursor CLI 27 (Local-package reading. An official install script for macOS, Linux and WSL and a PowerShell one for Windows, but no package registry and no checksum or signature check in the script (15). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). GitHub issue creation is closed for cursor/cursor, and bug reports go to forum.cursor.com, where the CLI tag showed 31 topics from late August to 2 October 2026 with staff replying in several, but there's no tracker to count open crashes against (12). Date-based versions (2026.09.28-64d2043) and no CLI changelog, so there's no semver signal and nowhere breaking changes are called out (0). Not 1.0 and not declared stable. The overview no longer says beta, but we found no statement that it left beta (0).); Orca 58 (Local software. Desktop and mobile builds and a Homebrew cask (20). Unit, end-to-end and platform test workflows; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Tags to v1.4.251, no changelog file (8). Version 1.4 (15). 20 + 15 + 0 + 8 + 15 = 58.)
- Agent ergonomics, Orca +28: Cursor CLI 42 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP tools can be allowed or denied per server and tool with Mcp(server:tool), and we found nothing on deferred loading (10). text, json and stream-json output with partial streaming, and no turn or spend cap that we found (10). No documented error format or exit codes (5). `--resume` and `--continue` (12). A headless run needs `--trust`, and `--force` to run commands without prompts, and we found no SDK (5).); Orca 70 (Harness reading. An orchestrator agent that splits work across workers in their own workspaces, chat or raw CLI, a browser and a CLI in one app (70).)
- Schema & documentation, Orca +26: Cursor CLI 39 (Framework reading. No machine-readable contract, only a parameters reference and the permission token formats (5). cursor.com/llms.txt lists the CLI pages with Markdown twins (10). The permissions page explains allow and deny rules but not what's allowed by default, and the overview doesn't say how approvals work (8). Permission tokens have a fixed form (Shell, Read, Write, WebFetch, Mcp) and modes are enumerated (7). Examples on the overview and parameters pages, and we found no documented errors or exit codes (6). No CLI changelog, and versions are dates (3).); Orca 65 (Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).)
- Payments & pricing, Orca +15: Cursor CLI 25 (Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices are public, but included usage isn't given in dollars or requests (10). Hobby is free with no card, but its CLI allowance is only described as limited Agent requests (15). A person signs in through a browser to use it or to get an API key (0).); Orca 40 (Scored on the cloud option. No protocol (0). The cloud price wasn't found on the pages read (0). The desktop app is free and MIT with no card (20). The local app needs no sign-up that we found (20). 0 + 0 + 20 + 20 = 40.)
- Maintenance & community, Orca +13: Cursor CLI 62 (Version 2026.09.28-64d2043, dated 28 September 2026 (30). Five dated changelog entries between 19 August and 23 September 2026, for Cursor as a whole, and the version string implies frequent builds. Judgement call, since none of the entries is CLI-only (20). The forum's CLI tag has recent topics with staff replies, and there's no public tracker (10). No SDK found (0). No public CI, and an installer without integrity checks (2).); Orca 75 (Tags to v1.4.251 and commits on 6 November 2026 (30). Many releases in 90 days (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current builds (15). Extensive CI (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.)
- Transparency & trust, Cursor CLI +6: Cursor CLI 60 (Closed source with clear terms from Anysphere, Inc. (15). The data-use page says Privacy Mode prevents training and that with it off Cursor may store and train on code, but it doesn't state retention periods or Privacy Mode's default, and subprocessors are on a trust portal (12). No deprecation policy or dated notices for the CLI (0). Client telemetry isn't documented, so there's no opt-out to credit (0).); Orca 54 (MIT (30). Privacy and telemetry docs on the site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.)