# Gauge CLI vs Prefactor (slim)

> Prefactor scores 61.5 (C) to Gauge CLI's 60.4 (C) for evaluations. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gauge-cli-vs-prefactor.md (~3,750 tokens) · this version ~1,580 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gauge-cli-vs-prefactor.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gauge-cli-vs-prefactor
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-06
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Prefactor scores 61.5 (C) on agent readiness against Gauge CLI's 60.4 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Gauge CLI leads on reliability. Both do evaluations.

- Gauge CLI: C 60.4, rank #590 of 1354 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gauge-cli.min.md
- Prefactor: C 61.5, rank #546 of 1354 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prefactor.min.md
- Gauge CLI, good for Teams that build skills, CLIs, SDKs or MCP servers and want to see where coding agents get stuck with them, and to test fixes before release. Ahead on Reliability, 60 against 53. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Prefactor loses 3 points for them.
- Prefactor, good for A team that wants an auditable record of agent runs with declared data-risk labels, quality payloads from its own evaluations and a remote stop signal. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 82 against 60; Agent ergonomics, 88 against 75. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Gauge CLI | Prefactor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 60 | 53 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 60 | 82 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 75 | 88 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 55 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 82 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 53 | 49 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Gauge CLI | Prefactor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | cli | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Gauge | Prefactor Pty Ltd |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://app.prefactorai.com/api/v1` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary hosted service. The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the CLI are MIT |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | not read yet |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 3 stars, 19 npm/wk, 28 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Schema & documentation, Prefactor +22: Gauge CLI 60 (CLI reading. No machine-readable contract, -o json on read commands (10 of 25). No llms.txt; instructions bundled in the CLI for agents (5). The README says what it finds and when local or hosted fits (16 of 20). Commands with help text; typed flags (9 of 15). Worked examples, no error reference (8 of 15). Dated changelog and semver tags (12 of 15). 10 + 5 + 16 + 9 + 8 + 12 = 60.); Prefactor 82 (A public OpenAPI 3.0.0 document with 163 operations and an OpenRPC document with 165 WebSocket methods (157 and 159 on 8 October). Body parameters are declared `in: body`, which OpenAPI 3 does not define, so some generators will need adjusting (23 of 25). llms.txt with abridged and full versions of the docs (10). Operations carry one-line summaries and only 6 of 163 have a description. The concept pages are clearer and say what the product does not do (10 of 20). Named ID schemas, enums and bounds such as `page_size` 1 to 100, but span payloads are free-form by design and `start_time` and `end_time` have no schema (11 of 15). A table of 12 error codes, an error union in the spec, curl examples and a runnable WebSocket script (13 of 15). The path is versioned `/api/v1`, the SDKs keep semver changelogs, and the site changelog now has 56 dated entries, the latest on 21 October 2026 (15).)
- Agent ergonomics, Prefactor +13: Gauge CLI 75 (CLI reading for an agent driving it. Bundled instructions match the installed version, and output is filterable with -o json (20 of 25). Run summaries and Findings with queryable fields (15 of 20). Errors not documented as a reference (10 of 20). Reruns from checkpoints and a recheck command with a confirm step (15 of 20). Four commands to start, Node only (15 of 15). 20 + 15 + 10 + 15 + 15 = 75.); Prefactor 88 (List calls take `pagination[page_size]` up to 100, summaries and counts are opt-in flags, and one endpoint exports a whole run's context (16 of 25). Offset pagination, sorting and filters by agent, instance, environment, time, purpose and status, with no cursor (18 of 20). Errors carry a stable `code`, a message naming the exceeded scope on 429 and a per-field map on validation failures (20). Every operation accepts `idempotency_key`, and a retried bulk request fails only the reused items. There is no MCP server to annotate (20). Official TypeScript and Python SDKs and a CLI. The Python SDK does not yet support sensitive encoding (14 of 15).)
- Reliability, Gauge CLI +7: Gauge CLI 60 (Local package. Installs from npm as @withgauge/cli with Node 22.13 or later and Docker stated (20). checks.yml runs npm run check on push and pull request across a matrix, and the repository has 76 test files; whether main passes wasn't read (20 of 25). Issues weren't read (5, unchecked). A dated changelog with Added sections per release (15). Version 0.28.0 (0). 20 + 20 + 5 + 15 + 0 = 60.); Prefactor 53 (Graded as a hosted service. A public status page at status.prefactor.ai (UptimeRobot), though we found no link to it from the site or docs. Its monitors and history load by script from `/api/` paths that the status host's robots.txt disallows, so on 1 November we couldn't re-read which parts of the service it covers (20, as awarded on 8 October). The incident record is unread. The 8 October reading of three monitors at 100 per cent came from the same disallowed path and no longer counts, so the line takes the no-readable-history score, a limit of our reading and not a finding against Prefactor (5). Rate limits are described by scope and one-minute window with no numbers (3 of 15). 429 carries `Retry-After` and `retry_after_ms`, both SDKs retry with backoff and jitter, and every operation takes an idempotency key (15). The pricing page lists an SLA on Enterprise with no text published (0). The API is version 1.0 and `@prefactor/core` is 1.2.0, with no beta label (10).)