# GitHub Copilot CLI vs mini-swe-agent (slim)

> GitHub Copilot CLI scores 58.3 (C) to mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.md (~3,800 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-copilot-cli-vs-mini-swe-agent
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-18
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GitHub Copilot CLI scores 58.3 (C) on agent readiness against mini-swe-agent's 56.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. mini-swe-agent leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.

- GitHub Copilot CLI: C 58.3, rank #647 of 1146 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/github-copilot-cli.min.md
- mini-swe-agent: C 56.7, rank #698 of 1146 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mini-swe-agent.min.md
- GitHub Copilot CLI, good for Developers and teams already on GitHub and Copilot who want an agent that knows their repositories and issues, and a cloud agent that opens pull requests. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 72 against 58; Security & auth, 63 against 56; Maintenance & community, 77 against 49; Transparency & trust, 70 against 51.
- mini-swe-agent, good for Benchmark runs, research baselines and RL or fine-tuning pipelines that want a minimal, readable agent with a linear trajectory, and for people who want to read every line of their harness. Ahead on Reliability, 70 against 55; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5.

| Category | GitHub Copilot CLI | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 70 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 72 | 58 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 72 | 69 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 63 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 77 | 49 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 70 | 51 |

| Fact (where they differ) | GitHub Copilot CLI | mini-swe-agent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | GitHub | SWE-bench team (Princeton and Stanford) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary, under the licence in the repository's `LICENSE.md`. Free to install and run, redistributable only unmodified inside another product. The repository holds the README, changelog and install script, not the source | MIT |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-07-23 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-04-27 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-27 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 11k stars | 8.6k stars, 4.4M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (4) |