Muse Code vs Claude Code vs Codex CLI vs Cursor CLI
Four terminal agents from four labs. Meta arrived last and undercut everyone — here is what the $5 plan actually gives up.
Updated September 4, 2026 · Independent comparison — Muse Code, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor CLI are separate products.
Muse Code
Meta's local-first terminal agent
Muse Code is Meta's terminal coding agent, in beta from 2026-08-05 and generally available on 2026-09-01. It ships as a single static binary with no language runtime and is local-first: the agent, its subagents and the session logs run on your machine, only inference is hosted. Large jobs fan out to child agents in isolated git worktrees. It runs Muse Spark 1.2 and 1.3 and nothing else, reads AGENTS.md and will import a Claude or Codex skills folder directly. Entry price is $5/month — the lowest here by a wide margin — with pay-as-you-go on the Meta Model API and a Contributor tier roughly 12x cheaper in exchange for training rights on your code.
Claude Code
Anthropic's terminal-first coding agent
Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic coding tool and the product this category is measured against. It runs as a CLI, IDE extensions, desktop, claude.ai and mobile, pairing Claude Opus 5, Sonnet 5 and Haiku 4.5 with plan mode, subagents, hooks, skills, MCP and remote sessions. It is proprietary and included with Claude Pro ($20) or Max ($100/$200), or driven by an API key. It can be pointed at GLM, Qwen or Kimi coding-plan keys through ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL. Its constraint is that on a subscription its quota is shared with claude.ai chat, so extra terminals get no separate bucket.
Codex CLI
OpenAI's open-source coding CLI
Codex CLI is OpenAI's terminal agent, and the only one of the four whose harness is open source — the cloud product wrapped around it is not. It runs GPT-5.6 and GPT-5.3-Codex on a ChatGPT plan or an API key, and spans CLI, IDE, web, iOS and Codex Cloud. Its distinguishing feature is that a consumer subscription includes background and cloud compute rather than only local runs, so delegated tasks draw on the same quota instead of being a separate SKU. Approval modes, OS sandboxing, MCP and AGENTS.md are all first-class, and ChatGPT Go puts entry at $8/month.
Cursor CLI
Cursor's agent, without the editor
Cursor CLI is the terminal form of Cursor's agent — a cursor-agent binary carrying the same Agent, Plan and Ask modes as the editor, running headless for CI as well as interactively. It is included with every Cursor plan from the free Hobby tier up, so it costs nothing extra to add. Its model catalogue is the widest here: Cursor's own Composer 2.5 and Grok models on a generous pool, plus Claude, GPT, Gemini, GLM and Kimi metered at API list rates on a smaller one. The catch is the billing shape — credits meter every prompt, unused pool does not roll over, and past the ceiling Cursor bills on-demand in arrears rather than stopping.
Bottom line
Meta arrived last and competed on price: Muse Code's $5 entry plan is well under Codex CLI's $8 and less than a third of Claude Code's or Cursor Pro's $20, and Meta's own benchmark table puts Muse Spark 1.3 narrowly ahead of Claude Opus 5 on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and DeepSWE v1.1. What the $5 gives up is breadth — one lab's models with no bring-your-own-key path, no IDE extension, no native Windows, and no cloud execution. Claude Code remains the deepest product and the widest surface. Codex CLI is the only open-source harness, and uniquely includes cloud compute on a consumer plan. Cursor CLI does the most for one account but has the least predictable bill, because credits meter every prompt and overage is billed in arrears. On architecture rather than price, Muse Code's worktree-isolated subagents and fail-closed OS sandbox are the most interesting new ideas in the group.
Price
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | ✗ | ✗ | Limited Codex access on ChatGPT Free | Hobby (free), CLI included |
| Entry paid plan | $5/month | $20/month (Claude Pro) | $8/month (ChatGPT Go) | $20/month (Cursor Pro) |
| Top consumer plan | $50/month (10x usage) | $200/month (Max) | $200/month (ChatGPT Pro) | $200/month (Ultra) |
| Billing shape | Flat plan, rolling 5-hour request allowance | Flat plan, quota shared with claude.ai chat | Flat plan, includes cloud compute | Credit pools, then on-demand overage in arrears |
| Cheaper tokens for training rights | Contributor tier: ~$0.10 in / ~$0.20 out per 1M | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Models
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model family | Muse Spark 1.2 and 1.3 | Claude Opus 5, Sonnet 5, Haiku 4.5 | GPT-5.6 and GPT-5.3-Codex | Composer 2.5 and Grok, plus Claude, GPT, Gemini, GLM, Kimi |
| Third-party models | ✗ | Via ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL — GLM, Qwen, Kimi | ✗ | ✓ |
| Switch models mid-session | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1M tokens (Opus 5) | ~1.05M tokens (GPT-5.6) | Varies by model |
| Multimodal input | Image and video, plus voice mode and web search | Image | Image | Image |
Licence & lock-in
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harness licence | Proprietary | Proprietary — the public repo is not OSI-licensed | Open source (the cloud product is proprietary) | Proprietary |
| Model weights | Closed | Closed | Closed | Closed |
| Bring your own key | Meta Model API key only | Partial — Anthropic or an Anthropic-compatible coding-plan key | Yes, via the API-key path | Cursor account only |
Parallelism & execution
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parallel work | One git worktree per child agent, concurrency roughly core count minus two | Subagents plus cloud tasks | Subagents plus Codex Cloud tasks on the same quota | Background agents from the editor and Agents window |
| Cloud or background execution | ✗ | Cloud sessions on Pro and Max | Codex Cloud, included with the plan | Background agents, included with the plan |
| Where the agent process runs | Fully local; only the model is hosted | Local CLI, plus hosted sessions | Local, or delegated to Codex Cloud | Local CLI, plus cloud background agents |
| Session recovery | Append-only event log, replay-exact and restart-safe | Session resume and remote sessions | Session resume | Not published |
Config & extensibility
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project instructions | AGENTS.md, falling back to CLAUDE.md | CLAUDE.md plus skills | AGENTS.md | Cursor rules and skills |
| Imports another agent's skills | Reads .claude/skills and .codex/skills | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| MCP support | Enabled by default | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| IDE extension | ✗ | VS Code and JetBrains | ✓ | Cursor's own editor |
| SDK | TypeScript SDK in developer preview | Claude Agent SDK | Codex SDK | Cursor SDK |
| Platforms | macOS and Linux; Windows needs WSL2 | macOS, Linux and Windows | macOS, Linux and Windows | macOS, Windows and Linux |
Safety
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approval controls | on-request default; rm -rf and sudo always prompt | Permission modes and approvals | Configurable approval modes | Command allow and deny lists |
| OS-enforced sandbox | Seatbelt on macOS, bubblewrap on Linux; fails closed | Sandboxing available | Sandboxed by default | Not published |
Verdict at a glance
| Feature | Muse Code | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor CLI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standout feature | Frontier-class coding at $5/month, with worktree-isolated parallel agents | The deepest ecosystem and the widest surface coverage | An open-source harness with cloud compute on a consumer plan | One account across editor, CLI, background agents and iOS, with every major model |
| Main drawback | One lab, no BYOK, no Windows, no IDE extension, and a training-data discount to read carefully | The most expensive entry price, and quota shared with chat | Locked to OpenAI models despite the open harness | Credit pools and overage make the bill hard to predict |
The Verdict
Choose Muse Code if...
- ✓Price is the deciding factor and $5/month is the number
- ✓You work in large repositories where worktree isolation prevents collisions
- ✓You want the agent, subagents and logs to stay on your machine
- ✓You want an OS-enforced sandbox that fails closed
- ✓You already have AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md or a skills folder to import
Choose Claude Code if...
- ✓You want the deepest ecosystem — hooks, skills, subagents and MCP servers
- ✓You want CLI, IDE, desktop, web and mobile from one product
- ✓You want to point the agent at GLM, Qwen or Kimi coding-plan keys
- ✓Editing quality on hard problems matters more than the monthly bill
Choose Codex CLI if...
- ✓You want an open-source harness you can read, fork and audit
- ✓You want cloud and background tasks included in a consumer subscription
- ✓You want the cheapest big-lab entry price outside Meta, at $8/month
- ✓You want CLI, IDE, web and iOS coverage
Choose Cursor CLI if...
- ✓You want one account spanning an editor, a CLI, background agents and iOS
- ✓You want to switch between Claude, GPT, Gemini, GLM and Kimi in one session
- ✓You want a genuinely free tier to evaluate before paying
- ✓You would rather pay overage than be throttled at the ceiling
Frequently Asked Questions
Which terminal coding agent is cheapest in 2026?
Muse Code, at $5/month for its Everyday Usage plan — roughly 10 to 50 requests every 5 hours. Codex CLI is next at $8/month via ChatGPT Go, and Claude Code and Cursor Pro both start at $20/month. Cursor CLI is free on the Hobby tier, but the free credits are small and the CLI bills against the same pools as the editor.
Is Muse Code good enough to replace Claude Code?
On Meta's published table, Muse Spark 1.3 edges Claude Opus 5 on Terminal-Bench 2.1 (88.8 vs 86.7) and DeepSWE v1.1 (75.4 vs 74.0), while Opus 5 leads on tool use and computer use. Those are vendor-run numbers on a new model. The bigger gap is product surface: Claude Code has IDE extensions, desktop, web and mobile, hooks and skills, and native Windows. Muse Code is a terminal binary on macOS and Linux.
Which of these are open source?
Only Codex CLI's harness, and its cloud product is not. Muse Code, Claude Code and Cursor CLI are all proprietary, and all four run closed-weight models. If an MIT licence is the requirement, OpenCode sits outside this group and is the answer.
Do any of them run on Windows without WSL2?
Claude Code, Codex CLI and Cursor CLI all support Windows natively. Muse Code does not — Meta ships macOS and Linux binaries for x86_64 and arm64 only, and Windows users need WSL2.
Can I move a project between them?
Largely yes, and Muse Code makes it easiest. It reads AGENTS.md — the same file Codex CLI uses — falls back to CLAUDE.md when there is no AGENTS.md, scans both .claude/skills and .codex/skills, and ships muse skills import for an explicit migration. Cursor is the outlier, using its own rules format.
Which one has the most predictable bill?
Muse Code and Claude Code, both flat monthly plans with a usage allowance. Codex CLI is flat too and includes cloud compute. Cursor CLI is the least predictable: credits meter every prompt, unused pool does not roll over, and past the ceiling Cursor offers on-demand usage billed in arrears rather than stopping you.
1DevToolShortlisting is the wrong exercise
These four are processes, not platforms — most developers end up wanting two or three, one for cheap bulk work, one for hard problems, one for whatever the first two are rate-limited on. 1DevTool runs 14 CLI agents including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Cline and OpenCode in persistent terminals in one window, each on its own subscription or key, with Charts and pipelines to orchestrate them and automatic fallbacks when one hits a limit. Around them sits a local toolchain: a 23-engine database client, an HTTP client, browser profiles, Docker and Git worktrees. From $29 one-time, no subscription.