# Gemini CLI vs Sculptor (slim)

> Gemini CLI scores 64.8 (B) to Sculptor's 53.1 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-sculptor.md (~5,750 tokens) · this version ~2,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-sculptor.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-cli-vs-sculptor
- 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 Sculptor's 53.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Sculptor leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- Gemini CLI: B 64.8, rank #455 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gemini-cli.min.md
- Sculptor: D 53.1, rank #966 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sculptor.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 43; Schema & documentation, 93 against 45; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 50; Security & auth, 67 against 57; Maintenance & community, 88 against 75; Transparency & trust, 90 against 57.
- Sculptor, good for Developers who want parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces and are fine with a research preview. 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.

| Category | Gemini CLI | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 71 | 43 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 93 | 45 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 78 | 50 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 67 | 57 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 88 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 90 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Gemini CLI | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google | Imbue, 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:
- Schema & documentation, Gemini CLI +48: 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).); Sculptor 45 (Harness reading. A README, specs and agent docs in the repository; no API reference (45).)
- Payments & pricing, Sculptor +40: 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.); Sculptor 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.)
- Transparency & trust, Gemini CLI +33: 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.); Sculptor 57 (MIT (30). Consent-based telemetry documented in the repository (18 of 30). The README warns of drastic changes during the research preview, with no deprecation policy (5). Opt-in telemetry (20). 30 + 18 + 5 + 20 = 73.)
- Reliability, Gemini CLI +28: 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.); Sculptor 43 (Local software. Desktop downloads for Mac (Apple Silicon), Linux and Linux ARM64 (20). checks.yml and a PR gate run on the repository; 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). sculptor-v tags up to v0.49.0, no changelog file (8). 0.x and labelled a research preview (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 8 + 0 = 43.)
- Agent ergonomics, Gemini CLI +28: 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).); Sculptor 50 (Harness reading. Workspaces as isolated copies, review and merge back, and built-in skills (50).)
- 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.); Sculptor 75 (Commits on 6 November 2026 and frequent tagged versions (30). More than three 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; the README says Imbue can't take many outside contributions yet (0). Current official downloads (15). CI on pull requests (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.)