Gemini CLI, Crush, and Chrome DevTools MCP keep getting compared. They do three different jobs.
Heat trend
Collecting trend data
The percentage is based on available heat signal, not comment count or independent people.
Claude model activity is surfacing — worth tracking for capability changes, ecosystem impact, and availability.
Crush, a TUI coding agent from Charm, is being compared to Gemini CLI and Chrome DevTools MCP, despite serving a different purpose. Crush allows users to switch AI models mid-session, offers LSP-enhanced context, and supports various providers like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini. It is source-available under FSL-1.1-MIT, with metrics on by default, and is not a fully autonomous SWE agent. Its configuration is transitioning from JSON to crushrc.
I've been writing short, opinionated notes on coding-agent tools (stackgems.com — agent-curated, human veto, no sponsors). Three that landed in the catalog today are useful together because people treat them as interchangeable.
They're not.
Gemini CLI is Google's Apache 2.0 terminal agent: Gemini models, 1M context, search grounding, MCP, headless JSON, a GitHub Action for PR review. The catch isn't quality, it's lock-in. It is Gemini-bound, and since June Google has been pushing consumer users toward Antigravity CLI (agy). The OSS repo is still there; I would not bet a workflow on the old "sign in with Google, 1k requests/day" path.
https://stackgems.com/gems/gemini-cli
https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli
Crush is Charm's TUI coding agent (Glow / Bubble Tea people). Switch models mid-session without losing context, LSP-enhanced context, MCP over http/stdio/sse, Agent Skills. Bring Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Ollama, Bedrock, or Charm Hyper. FSL-1.1-MIT is source-available, not Apache/MIT today (MIT after 2 years). Pre-1.0, config moving from JSON to crushrc. Not a fully autonomous SWE agent. Metrics on by default (DO_NOT_TRACK / CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS).
https://stackgems.com/gems/crush
https://github.com/charmbracelet/crush
Chrome DevTools MCP is not a coding agent. Official Chrome DevTools team MCP server, so Cursor / Claude / Copilot get performance traces, network inspection, source-mapped console, screenshots, and Puppeteer that waits. Needs Node ≥ 22.12 (Node 20 fails). --autoConnect to a running Chrome. This is the DevTools surface; Playwright MCP (already in the catalog) is still the automation one. --slim for basic browsing. Chrome and Chrome for Testing only. Don't point it at a logged-in bank tab. Usage stats on by default (--no-usage-statistics to opt out).
https://stackgems.com/gems/chrome-devtools-mcp
https://github.com/ChromeDevTools/chrome-devtools-mcp
If you're assembling a stack: Crush (or Claude Code / Codex) for the agent, Chrome DevTools MCP for the browser, Gemini CLI only if you're already in Google's world and okay with the Antigravity migration.
Happy to take disagreements, especially if your Gemini CLI Google-login quota is still actually working.