# Junie CLI vs Sculptor (slim)

> Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) to Junie CLI's 49 (D) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-sculptor.md (~6,150 tokens) · this version ~2,630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-vs-sculptor.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/junie-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)

Sculptor scores 53.1 (D) on agent readiness against Junie CLI's 49 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Junie CLI leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do agent harnesses.

- Junie CLI: D 49, rank #1110 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/junie.min.md
- Sculptor: D 53.1, rank #966 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sculptor.min.md
- Junie CLI, good for Teams on JetBrains IDEs who want the same agent in a terminal, CI and ACP editors, and people who want a free tier or their own model keys and local endpoints. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 62 against 45; Agent ergonomics, 55 against 50; Transparency & trust, 77 against 57. Also Free to start without a card.
- Sculptor, good for Developers who want parallel coding agents in isolated workspaces and are fine with a research preview. Ahead on Reliability, 43 against 33; Payments & pricing, 60 against 42; Maintenance & community, 75 against 64. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Junie CLI loses 4 points for them.

| Category | Junie CLI | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 33 | 43 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 62 | 45 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 55 | 50 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 56 | 57 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 42 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 64 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 77 | 57 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Junie CLI | Sculptor |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | JetBrains | Imbue, Inc. |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary, JetBrains s.r.o., all rights reserved, under the JetBrains AI Terms of Service. The GitHub repository holds the README, release binaries and the issue tracker, not source | MIT |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-30 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-06-12 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | 3.2k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Transparency & trust, Junie CLI +20: Junie CLI 77 (Proprietary, with clear terms. The JetBrains AI Terms of Service (version 2.1, effective 30 September 2025) name AI Assistant and Junie, though the Junie EAP terms from December 2024 still call Junie a plugin (15). The terms rule out training on inputs without consent and list AI subcontractors with 30 days' notice of new ones (page updated 29 September 2026, naming OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and SpaceXAI for Junie). The AI FAQ says nothing persists unless detailed data collection is on, retained up to a year, and that it's on by default for non-commercial licences. Security monitoring keeps data for an unstated limited period (22). The terms promise 30 days' email notice before JetBrains AI is discontinued, but Junie Lite's model may change without notice and model aliases change without a stated period (10). A per-run override for anonymous statistics is documented, with no stated default and no list of what is sent (10). 15+22+10+10 = 57. Per the 18 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because JetBrains' website terms bar robots and data mining on its sites.); 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.)
- Payments & pricing, Sculptor +18: Junie CLI 42 (Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices and the US$1 credit are public without a login, but per-model credit rates and Junie API key usage rates weren't found (12). Junie Lite is free with a JetBrains account and no card (20). Judgement call. The docs present BYOK keys and custom endpoints such as Ollama as alternatives to a JetBrains sign-in, so a pipeline holding a provider key needs no JetBrains signup, but the headless page says a token is required and a Junie API key is created by hand at junie.jetbrains.com/cli (10). 0+12+20+10 = 42. Per the 18 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because JetBrains' website terms bar robots and data mining on its sites.); 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.)
- Schema & documentation, Junie CLI +17: Junie CLI 62 (Framework reading. A CLI reference that lists every flag with examples, documented formats for the allowlist, config.json, custom model profiles and hook payloads, and ACP as the editor protocol. No schema for the json or json-stream output was found, and the OpenAPI covers only update metadata (12). llms.txt exists and claims Markdown by content negotiation, but docs pages came back as HTML with `Accept: text/markdown` and llms.txt doesn't index them (6). Pages say when to use ACP and when not, and how trust works in each launch mode, but the headless page doesn't say what happens when an action needs approval (13). Output formats, effort levels, channels and allowlist actions are enumerated, though the effort values differ between the CLI reference and the model page (11). Examples throughout and nine StopFailure categories in the hooks page, but no exit codes or error format (8). A dated release list and dated docs pages (12). 12+6+13+11+8+12 = 62. Per the 18 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because JetBrains' website terms bar robots and data mining on its sites.); Sculptor 45 (Harness reading. A README, specs and agent docs in the repository; no API reference (45).)
- Maintenance & community, Sculptor +11: Junie CLI 64 (Release 26.11.3 (build 3959.5) added to the release feed on 3 November 2026, read from a clone of JetBrains/junie (30). The release channel added 30 builds between 6 August and 3 November, from 2651.3 on 11 August to 3959.5, and the repository has 1,032 tags created in that window, most of them nightly builds (20). Responsiveness 5 of 25. The 18 October counts of the GitHub tracker and YouTrack came from shields.io badges and YouTrack's JSON API, both struck, so what is left is the dated What's New page and a Discord server, per the 18 October check, with replies unread (5). No SDK and no registry entry. The GitHub Action is at v1 and GitLab CI is documented, and ACP is kept current, per the 18 October check (6). Closed source with no workflow files in the repository, so no CI or dependency health to read. The installer checks sums, and npm sat five weeks behind the release feed on 18 October (3). 30+20+5+6+3 = 64.); 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.)
- Reliability, Sculptor +10: Junie CLI 33 (Local-package reading, the same as the other closed-source harnesses. Install scripts for macOS, Linux and Windows on x86-64 and ARM64, a Homebrew tap and npm, with SHA-256 sums checked against the release feed (update-info.jsonl, read from a clone on 4 November), but the script carries on without a sum for an unlisted version and npm sat five weeks behind at 3110.7.0 on 18 October (17). No public CI or test suite. No source is published and the repository has no workflow files, per a clone on 4 November (0). Crash and regression line 0. The 18 October counts came from shields.io badges and YouTrack's JSON API, both struck in this run, and no first-hand reading of the GitHub tracker or YouTrack is possible today (github.com pages refused, JetBrains hosts paused). What's New dates every build, but entries are one line and no breaking change is called out, and versions are a date plus a build number, per the 18 October check (6). JetBrains said Junie left Beta on 17 June 2026, but the headless page dated 15 October still calls the CLI an EAP, per the 18 October check (10). 17+0+0+6+10 = 33.); 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, Junie CLI +5: Junie CLI 55 (Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP tools can be allowed per server prefix, and default MCP, skill, agent and config locations can each be switched off, with no deferred tool loading found (15). text, json and json-stream output and `--json-output-file`. Remote mode mentions a step limit, but no turn, time or spend cap for a headless run was documented (10). No exit codes. A Stop hook can end a task with a failure status, and StopFailure names the failure category (8). Sessions resume with `--session-id` or `--resume`, and worktrees isolate parallel sessions (14). One command with `--auth` and a dynamically chosen default model, a GitHub Action and GitLab CI, and no SDK (8). 15+10+8+14+8 = 55. Per the 18 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because JetBrains' website terms bar robots and data mining on its sites.); Sculptor 50 (Harness reading. Workspaces as isolated copies, review and merge back, and built-in skills (50).)