# Emdash vs Gemini CLI (slim)

> Gemini CLI scores 64.8 (B) to Emdash's 53.9 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/emdash-vs-gemini-cli.md (~5,800 tokens) · this version ~2,280 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/emdash-vs-gemini-cli.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/emdash-vs-gemini-cli
- 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)

Gemini CLI scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against Emdash's 53.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Emdash leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Emdash: D 53.9, rank #927 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/emdash.min.md
- Gemini CLI: B 64.8, rank #453 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gemini-cli.min.md
- Emdash, good for Developers who want parallel agents in worktrees, fed from their issue tracker, locally or over SSH. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 20. Also No key needed to call it; No incidents deducted, where Gemini CLI loses 7 points for them.
- Gemini CLI, good for Teams with Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise licences, or paid Gemini API or Vertex AI credentials, that want an open-source harness with documented headless output. Ahead on Reliability, 71 against 55; Schema & documentation, 93 against 55; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 55; Security & auth, 67 against 38; Maintenance & community, 88 against 70; Transparency & trust, 90 against 54.

| Category | Emdash | Gemini CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 71 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 55 | 93 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 55 | 78 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 38 | 67 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 70 | 88 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 54 | 90 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Emdash | Gemini CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | General Action, Inc. | Google |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 107k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, Emdash +40: Emdash 60 (Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy, so 0 for a protocol and 20 each for public pricing, a free tier and onboarding with no sign-up, 60.); Gemini CLI 20 (Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Token prices and plan prices are public without a login (20). The 1,000 requests a day Google sign-in tier ended on 18 June 2026. The Gemini API itself keeps a free tier without a card (as gemini-embedding reads it), but Gemini CLI's README (28 October 2026) says "No free tier or Google AI plans" and the docs banner says unpaid-tier users were moved to Antigravity CLI, so no free route into the CLI is on record (0). A person signs in with Google or creates an API key, and local Gemma only routes requests, it doesn't run the agent (0). 0 + 20 + 0 + 0 = 20.)
- Schema & documentation, Gemini CLI +38: Emdash 55 (Harness reading. Docs site and a workspace server package (55).); Gemini CLI 93 (Framework reading. settings.schema.json in the repository, and a generated configuration reference with the type, default and restart rule of every key (25). llms.txt at geminicli.com serving the documentation as Markdown (10). Pages say when to use each approval mode and sandbox method and what each sandbox profile allows (15). Approval modes, sandbox commands and Seatbelt profiles are enums (13). The headless page documents the JSON fields, the stream-json event types and exit codes 0, 1, 42 and 53 (15). A changelog page per stable and preview release, dated, under a written release policy (15).)
- Transparency & trust, Gemini CLI +36: Emdash 54 (Apache 2.0 (30). A telemetry page on the docs site (not read) (18 of 30). No deprecation policy (5). Disclosed with an opt-out (15 of 20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 15 = 68.); Gemini CLI 90 (Apache-2.0 (30). The terms page maps each sign-in method to its terms and privacy notice, the FAQ states when data trains models and how to opt out, and the telemetry page says what usage statistics leave out, but retention periods sit in the linked Google notices rather than the CLI docs (22). Dated deprecation notices exist. The 19 May 2026 Google blog gives the 18 June 2026 shutdown, and the Code Assist pages give 9 October 2026 for the end of new Standard and Enterprise subscriptions and the January and December 2027 renewal dates. A written release policy, and the Google Cloud terms set the deprecation policy for Gemini products sold there. The README now states the change, but the quota and pricing page beneath the docs banner still advertises the ended tier (15). Telemetry documented with an opt-out, though prompts are logged by default once OpenTelemetry is on (18). 30 + 22 + 15 + 18 = 85.)
- Security & auth, Gemini CLI +29: Emdash 38 (Harness reading. Telemetry is described as optional and disabled in Settings or with TELEMETRY_ENABLED=false, which reads as on by default (15 of 30). Worktree per task and remote machines over SSH (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). No security policy file found (3). 15 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 3 = 38.); Gemini CLI 67 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. Usage statistics on by default (`privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled` defaults to true), documented as free of prompts, responses, file contents and personal information, with one setting to turn them off. Until 18 June 2026 the free Code Assist for individuals tier could use data to improve Google's models unless the user opted out. Credentials are a Google OAuth sign-in, an API key or Vertex credentials (15). Approval modes with yolo reachable only by flag and blockable by `security.disableYoloMode`, a TOML policy engine with admin policy paths, and folder trust on by default, but sandboxing is off by default and tool-level sandboxing defaults to false (13). Environment-variable redaction, and 0.61.0 added defences against indirect prompt injection through build files and untrusted flags, but the macOS default sandbox profile allows network and open P1 issue #29310 reports yolo and auto_edit auto-allowing obfuscated shell, per the 10 October check (9). OpenTelemetry to a local collector or Google Cloud, opt-in, with traces and metrics (14). SECURITY.md routes reports to g.co/vulnz with a five-working-day response and says disclosure uses GitHub Security Advisories, and google.com has a valid security.txt to 2030. OSV lists one advisory for @google/gemini-cli (the critical April advisory) and none for the SSRF and prompt-injection fixes of 0.59.0 and 0.61.0 (16). SOC 2 isn't scored on the framework reading. 15 + 13 + 9 + 14 + 16 = 67.)
- Agent ergonomics, Gemini CLI +23: Emdash 55 (Harness reading. Issue intake from Linear, GitHub, Jira and others, diff review, pull requests and CI checks in one place, local or over SSH (55).); Gemini CLI 78 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP servers take includeTools, excludeTools and a trust flag, and `--allowed-mcp-server-names` limits which load (20). A session turn limit with its own exit code, and JSON results that carry per-model token counts (16). Documented exit codes and an error object in JSON output (18). `--resume` and checkpointing (14). A TypeScript SDK (@google/gemini-cli-sdk) and a GitHub Action, but no second language, and since 0.39.1 a CI run has to set `GEMINI_TRUST_WORKSPACE` to work in its own checkout (10).)
- Maintenance & community, Gemini CLI +18: Emdash 70 (v1.2.11 on 6 November 2026 (30). v1.2.9, v1.2.10 and v1.2.11 within two weeks (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current installers and Homebrew cask (15). Release workflows, no test CI (5). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 70.); Gemini CLI 88 (0.66.0 on 2026-10-27 (30). 14 stable releases from 3 August to 1 November (0.54.0, 0.54.4, 0.55.1 and 0.56.0 to 0.66.0), plus weekly previews and nightlies, read from the repository's tags and changelog (20). 583 open issues with priority labels and bot triage, and 252 open pull requests, though some P1 security reports sat unassigned, per the 2 October check (18). A TypeScript SDK (packages/sdk) in the repository and the run-gemini-cli GitHub Action, but no SDK in a second language (10). CI, nightly evals and an Allstar policy (10). 30 + 20 + 18 + 10 + 10 = 88.)