FractalvsKota
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Fractal
Trampoline AI · Terminal agent
#224OSS
Panel
4.63 spec wins
- Reliability
- 3.7
- Usefulness
- 4.2
- Cost
- 6.0
- Longevity
- 4.7
“The runtime is described as self-harnessed, which is a very confident way to say the loop calls itself.”
Kota
StepfenShawn · Terminal agent
#252OSS
Panel
4.80 spec wins
- Reliability
- 4.3
- Usefulness
- 4.0
- Cost
- 6.8
- Longevity
- 4.0
“Built on the philosophy of vim, which means the configuration is infinite and the exit is somebody else's problem.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Fractal | Kota |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos | macos, linux |
| 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 | No |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | Yes | No |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | No |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | predict-rlm | multiple providers |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | No | No |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | $0/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 200 | 100 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Fractal | Kota | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 4.5 | 5.3 | Kota — Pick it if you enjoy assembling your own tools; pick something with batteries if you want to type a request tonight and get a change back. |
| El Crítico | 4.3 | 4.8 | Kota — It edits across files and has no version control operations of its own, so an unwanted change has no undo path the tool can offer you. |
| El Profesor | 5.3 | 4.5 | Fractal — The agent is structured as a recursive language model rather than a flat loop, so decomposition is the control flow instead of a prompt convention. |
| La Inversora | 4.8 | 3.8 | Fractal — 200 stars and seventy-three public mentions in a year, from a named company, which is more attention than most projects here and more than the software has earned. |
| La Jefa | 3.5 | 4.3 | Kota — The one thing here my team could use is embedding it inside our own service, and there is no console, no single sign-on and nothing that runs unattended. |
| El Hacker | 5.5 | 6.3 | Kota — MIT, and the configuration is Lua with custom commands of my own, which is the difference between a settings file and a programmable tool. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.