fxvsjcode
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
fx
Vercel Labs · Terminal agent
#199OSSMCP
Panel
5.81 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.3
- Usefulness
- 5.7
- Cost
- 7.0
- Longevity
- 5.3
“The whole agent is 7.8 MiB, which is smaller than the loading spinner on some tools it competes with.”
jcode
jcode · Terminal agent
#166OSSMCP
Panel
5.83 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.2
- Usefulness
- 5.7
- Cost
- 8.3
- Longevity
- 4.2
“You can spawn several AI teammates in parallel, which is how you end up holding a standup with yourself.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | fx | jcode |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux | macos, linux, windows |
| Context window | not documented | per-model, up to 1M where the model supports it |
| Protocols | ||
| MCP client | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No |
| Capabilities | ||
| Runs terminal commands | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-file edits | Yes | Yes |
| Git operations | No | Yes |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | Yes |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Yes |
| Headless / CI mode | No | No |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | Vercel AI Gateway models, OpenAI, Grok | any |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | No | Yes |
| Cost | ||
| Pricing model | byok | byok |
| Starts at | $0/mo | n/a |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Bring your own key | Yes | Yes |
| Openness | ||
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 3,250 | 38 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | fx | jcode | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 6.0 | 6.0 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 5.3 | 5.0 | fx — It first shipped in August 2026 and carries a preview label, and it executes commands with no isolation recorded anywhere on this row. |
| El Profesor | 6.3 | 6.5 | jcode — A read-only Plan Mode produces a structured plan before any action, and the same tool implementations run locally, over SSH and inside Docker, which keeps behaviour identical across environments. |
| La Inversora | 5.8 | 5.0 | fx — A labs project rather than a product, with billing that runs through the parent's inference routing service, so the free binary is the metered path in. |
| La Jefa | 4.8 | 4.5 | fx — Nothing to buy for sixty engineers, macOS and Linux only, and the spend arrives through a routing account rather than a seat price I can put in a spreadsheet. |
| El Hacker | 7.0 | 8.0 | jcode — MIT, a single Go binary, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint including my own, and MCP servers declared in an mcp_servers block taking stdio and http entries. |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.