CindyvsMetis
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Cindy
makecindy · Terminal agent
#239OSS
Panel
4.93 spec wins
- Reliability
- 3.5
- Usefulness
- 5.3
- Cost
- 6.2
- Longevity
- 4.7
“Runs locally on your own machine without a sandbox, using your real files and logged-in apps.”
Metis
Wholiver · Terminal agent
#237OSS
Panel
5.01 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.5
- Usefulness
- 5.2
- Cost
- 6.2
- Longevity
- 4.3
“The desktop build bundles its own runtime, because asking a developer to install Node turned out to be the harder engineering problem.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Cindy | Metis |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows, web | macos, windows |
| Context window | not documented | not documented |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | No | No |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | Yes |
| Browser control | Yes | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Claude Code, Codex | DeepSeek, subscription providers |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | Yes | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | mixed | byok |
| Starts at | n/a | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 2,842 | 178 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Cindy | Metis | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 5.8 | 5.5 | Cindy — Cindy is an ambitious open-source agent orchestrator for developers who want to mix and match models, but its lack of a sandbox makes it a risky choice for anything but personal projects. |
| El Crítico | 4.8 | 4.5 | Cindy — Cindy runs unsandboxed with terminal and browser access, a dealbreaker for any environment with production data. |
| El Profesor | 5.0 | 4.5 | Cindy — Cindy is an orchestration client for other agents, not an agent itself; its value depends entirely on the harnesses it integrates and its ability to maintain context between them. |
| La Inversora | 5.5 | 5.8 | Metis — Around seventeen hundred weekly package installs against 137 stars, which is the rare case of real usage running ahead of the applause. |
| La Jefa | 3.3 | 4.5 | Metis — Nothing per seat across sixty engineers, and no console, no single sign-on, no audit export and nothing that runs without a person watching. |
| El Hacker | 5.3 | 5.5 | Metis — MIT and a global package install with my own key, which is fine; there is no port for the servers I run and no route to weights on my machine. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.