# Gemini CLI vs Orca (slim)

> Gemini CLI scores 64.8 (B) to Orca's 57.4 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-orca.md (~5,850 tokens) · this version ~2,380 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-orca.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-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
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Gemini CLI scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against Orca's 57.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orca leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Gemini CLI: B 64.8, rank #453 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gemini-cli.min.md
- Orca: C 57.4, rank #791 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/orca.min.md
- 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 58; Schema & documentation, 93 against 65; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 70; Security & auth, 67 against 43; Maintenance & community, 88 against 75; Transparency & trust, 90 against 54.
- Orca, good for Developers who want an orchestrator agent to split work across parallel coding agents, on desktop or mobile. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 40 against 20. Also No key needed to call it; No incidents deducted, where Gemini CLI loses 7 points for them.

| Category | Gemini CLI | Orca |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 71 | 58 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 93 | 65 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 78 | 70 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 67 | 43 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 88 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 90 | 54 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Gemini CLI | Orca |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google | Lovecast Inc. |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Popularity | 107k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Transparency & trust, Gemini CLI +36: 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.); 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.)
- Schema & documentation, Gemini CLI +28: 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).); Orca 65 (Harness reading. A docs site with CLI orchestration and native chat pages (65).)
- Security & auth, Gemini CLI +24: 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.); Orca 43 (Harness reading. Anonymous usage data with an opt-out, per the README's link to its telemetry docs (15 of 30). Worktrees per agent and a sandboxed Linux build (12 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). A dependency-security workflow (6 of 20). 15 + 12 + 5 + 5 + 6 = 43.)
- Payments & pricing, Orca +20: 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.); 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.)
- Reliability, Gemini CLI +13: Gemini CLI 71 (Local-package reading. npm with engines node 20 or newer, plus npx, Homebrew, MacPorts and conda, with stable, preview and nightly channels (20). Public CI with ci.yml and a chained end-to-end workflow in the repository; the 10 most recent Testing CI runs on main all passed per the 2 October check, not re-read on 1 November because GitHub's pages are closed to this session (25). 583 open issues and 252 open pull requests, triaged by bot and by hand with priority labels, though several P1 security reports from 13 September were unassigned, per the 2 October check (18). releases.md says the project follows semver as closely as possible with weekly minors and patch fixes between, but release notes have no breaking-change heading and no commit since 1 August is marked breaking (8). 0.66.0, pre-1.0 (0). 20 + 25 + 18 + 8 + 0 = 71.); 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.)
- Maintenance & community, Gemini CLI +13: 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.); 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.)