Swivalvszot
Generated from the two spec rows. Green marks the better value where a spec has a clear direction. Everything else is just different.
Swival
Swival · Terminal agent
#134OSS
Panel
6.60 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.8
- Usefulness
- 6.2
- Cost
- 8.8
- Longevity
- 5.7
“The install command pins Python 3.14, which is a level of confidence the rest of us can only admire.”
zot
Patrice Eckhart · Terminal agent
#110OSS
Panel
6.62 spec wins
- Reliability
- 5.5
- Usefulness
- 6.5
- Cost
- 8.7
- Longevity
- 5.7
“It can run as a Telegram bot, so your coding agent now lives in the same app as your family group chat.”
Spec by spec
| Spec | Swival | zot |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| Category | Terminal agent | Terminal agent |
| Runs | local | local |
| Platforms | macos, linux, windows | macos, linux, 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 | No |
| Browser control | No | No |
| Sandboxed execution | No | NoThe built-in /jail sandbox is a path and shell guardrail, not container isolation; the README suggests running zot under Docker if you need real isolation. |
| Multi-agent orchestration | No | YesSwarm subagents share the host working directory and the same read, write, edit and bash tools; there is no per-agent worktree or branch. |
| Headless / CI mode | YesSwival takes the task as a command-line argument and runs the loop to completion, which suits scripted use. | YesPrint, stream and JSON modes accept piped stdin, and a headless Telegram daemon is supported. |
| Models | ||
| Backbone | LM Studio, llama.cpp, Hugging Face Inference API, OpenRouter, Google Gemini, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, ChatGPT Plus/Pro, AWS Bedrock, Apple Foundation Models, any OpenAI-compatible server | Anthropic, OpenAI, Codex, Google Gemini, Vertex AI, GitHub Copilot, Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, Cerebras, xAI, Together, Hugging Face, Mistral, Moonshot, Kimi, DeepSeek, Z.AI, Xiaomi, MiniMax, Fireworks, Vercel AI Gateway, Cloudflare AI, Ollama |
| Bring your own model | Yes | Yes |
| Local models | YesLM Studio and llama.cpp need no auth and no flags, and the loaded model is auto-discovered. | YesOllama and local models are a built-in provider. |
| 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 | 341 | 348 |
Which one would each critic pick
| Critic | Swival | zot | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| El Juez | — | — | not enough reviews |
| El Amigo | 7.0 | 7.0 | no preference |
| El Crítico | 6.3 | 6.3 | no preference |
| El Profesor | 6.5 | 6.3 | Swival — The central claim is comparative reliability on small models, which is unusually testable, and no measurement of it accompanies the tool. |
| La Inversora | 6.0 | 6.0 | no preference |
| La Jefa | 6.3 | 6.3 | no preference |
| El Hacker | 7.8 | 7.8 | no preference |
Picks are derived from each critic's own scores. Humans vote on matchups on the duels page.