# Emdash vs Kiro CLI (slim)

> Kiro CLI scores 59.8 (C) 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-kiro-cli.md (~5,800 tokens) · this version ~2,280 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/emdash-vs-kiro-cli.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/emdash-vs-kiro-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)

Kiro CLI scores 59.8 (C) 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 #933 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/emdash.min.md
- Kiro CLI: C 59.8, rank #678 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kiro-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 40. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Kiro CLI loses 5 points for them.
- Kiro CLI, good for Teams on AWS that want one agent configuration across terminal, IDE and web, with central permission policy, prompt logging to their own S3 bucket and IAM Identity Centre sign-in. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 79 against 55; Agent ergonomics, 67 against 55; Security & auth, 69 against 38; Transparency & trust, 71 against 54. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | Emdash | Kiro CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 57 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 55 | 79 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 55 | 67 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 38 | 69 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 70 | 73 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 54 | 71 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Emdash | Kiro CLI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | General Action, Inc. | Amazon Web Services |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary. Licensed as AWS Content under the AWS Customer Agreement and the AWS Intellectual Property Licence (https://kiro.dev/license/). The GitHub repository is the public issue tracker and doesn't hold the source |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-11-03 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-14 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-05-18 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 4.4k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, Kiro CLI +31: 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.); Kiro CLI 69 (Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. Telemetry and content collection are on by default for Free and individual accounts, each with a documented opt-out, and enterprise users are opted out. API keys are long-lived and revocable with no scopes, and administrators must switch key generation on (14). Deny over ask over allow across six scopes, hard-coded denies on Kiro's own settings paths, workspace trust and a managed policy that fails closed. V3 is the default since 3.0.0 (3 November 2026), interactive V3 sessions ask before loading a folder's hooks, agents and MCP servers since 2.33.0, and `/sandbox` puts agent shell commands and local stdio MCP servers in an operating-system sandbox. The sandbox is off unless chosen and doesn't cover the agent, built-in file tools or remote MCP servers, and AWS says managed policies are client-enforced and can be circumvented (17). An untrusted workspace doesn't load its agents, steering, MCP configuration or skills, compound shell commands are split before matching, and the MCP page warns that servers run outside any sandbox (11). Enterprise prompt logging to the customer's S3 bucket covers the CLI, with daily activity reports and OpenTelemetry export, and individuals have local logs only (11). AWS vulnerability reporting through a HackerOne disclosure programme with no paid bounty, CVEs published in security bulletins with credit to reporters, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 scope and HIPAA eligibility. The aws.amazon.com security.txt is valid (Expires 2027-10-16) and kiro.dev/.well-known/security.txt answers 404, so 2 are held back for that and 2 for no bounty (16). 14+17+11+11+16 = 69.)
- Schema & documentation, Kiro CLI +24: Emdash 55 (Harness reading. Docs site and a workspace server package (55).); Kiro CLI 79 (Framework reading. A command reference, a settings reference, an exit-code page and a documented rule format for permissions, plus the Agent Client Protocol methods the CLI implements. No published schema for the stream-json events was found (14). kiro.dev/llms.txt indexes every docs page and each has a Markdown twin, though robots.txt disallows both for crawlers (10). The permissions page states the defaults, what each preset allows and when to pick it, and that headless runs treat ask as deny (16). Rules are validated, an unknown preset rejects the session request, and a malformed managed policy fails closed (12). CI examples, exit codes 0, 1, 3 and 4 and hook exit codes are documented, but code 1 covers every other failure (12). Versioned releases with a dated changelog and a 2.x reference kept beside V3 (15).)
- Payments & pricing, Emdash +20: 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.); Kiro CLI 40 (Harness reading of the published rubric, scored on the Kiro subscription the CLI needs. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices, the $0.04 credit price and per-model credit multipliers are public without a login (20). Kiro Free has 50 credits a month, and the pricing page asks for a card only on upgrade (20). A person signs in through a browser or device flow, and the API key for headless runs is created by hand at app.kiro.dev on a paid plan (0).)
- Transparency & trust, Kiro CLI +17: 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.); Kiro CLI 71 (Proprietary, with clear terms. The licence page puts the CLI under the AWS Customer Agreement and the AWS Intellectual Property Licence, where the Amazon Q Developer CLI it replaced was Apache 2.0, per the 8 October check (15). The data protection page (updated 23 October 2026) says what is stored for Free, individual and enterprise users, names US East (N. Virginia) for storage, and gives 60 days for Free Tier abuse detection and 30 days for some models. It agrees with sections 50.3 and 50.14 of the AWS Service Terms, read on 8 October. No general retention period for stored content was found (22). The models page has a model lifecycle section with Experimental, Active and EOL stages and dates, and Claude Sonnet 4 ended on 14 October 2026. 3.0.0 made V3 the default as 2.30.0 announced and retired the Classic interface 34 days after the 2.26.0 deprecation notice, but the desktop app and inline autocomplete were retired in the same release with no earlier notice found, and no minimum notice period is stated (14). Telemetry types are listed and `kiro-cli settings telemetry.enabled` turns them off, with collection on by default. The data protection page's CLI steps still point to the desktop app's Preferences, which 3.0.0 retired (15). 15+22+14+15 = 66.)
- Agent ergonomics, Kiro CLI +12: 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).); Kiro CLI 67 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. `--trust-tools` limits approved tools, `disabledTools` removes MCP tools per server, tool search loads MCP tools on demand, and custom agents carry their own tool set (20). Compaction and a workflow timeout (`KIRO_HEADLESS_WORKFLOW_TIMEOUT_SECS`, six hours by default) exist, but no cap on turns or run time for a plain headless run was found (10). Distinct exit codes for MCP startup failure and a missing agent, `--require-mcp-startup`, and a final interruption record in stream-json, with exit 1 for everything else (14). Sessions are saved every turn, with `--resume`, `--resume-id` and checkpoints with rewind (15). No SDK. The programmatic interfaces are the headless command and the ACP server, and a headless run needs a paid-plan API key and explicit trust flags (8).)