Terminal Agents: Codex vs. Crush vs. OpenCode vs. Cursor CLI vs. Claude Code

I love Claude Code, but I hate being locked into Anthropic models. What if I want to use GPT5 or whatever comes out next week? So I went on a quest to find a terminal-based coding agent that works with different models and doesn't suck compared to Claude Code. I tested every terminal agent I could find: Codex CLI from OpenAI, Charm Crush, OpenCode, and Cursor CLI. My requirements were simple - intuitive interface, MCP servers support, saved prompts, and actual functionality for coding and operations. The results were... disappointing. From agents that couldn't even fetch their own documentation to beautiful UIs that prioritized looks over functionality, each had critical flaws that made them unusable for real work. Even GPT5, hyped as the best coding model ever, couldn't shine through these broken wrappers. By the end, you'll understand why having a great model isn't enough - you need the complete package, and right now, that's still painfully rare in the terminal agent space. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 👉 Grab your free seat to the 2-Day AI Mastermind: https://link.outskill.com/AIDOS2 🔐 100% Discount for the first 1000 people 💥 Dive deep into AI and Learn Automations, Build AI Agents, Make videos & images – all for free! 🎁 Bonuses worth $5100+ if you join and attend ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ #TerminalAgents #CodingAI #GPT5 Consider joining the channel:    / devopstoolkit   ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🔗 Additional Info 🔗 ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ➡ Transcript and commands: https://devopstoolkit.live/ai/termina... ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 💰 Sponsorships 💰 ▬▬▬▬▬▬ If you are interested in sponsoring this channel, please visit https://devopstoolkit.live/sponsor for more information. Alternatively, feel free to contact me over Twitter or LinkedIn (see below). ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 👋 Contact me 👋 ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ➡ BlueSky: https://vfarcic.bsky.social ➡ LinkedIn:   / viktorfarcic   ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🚀 Other Channels 🚀 ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🎤 Podcast: https://www.devopsparadox.com/ 💬 Live streams:    / devopsparadox   ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⏱ Timecodes ⏱ ▬▬▬▬▬▬ 00:00 Terminal-Based Coding Agents 01:09 Outskill (sponsor) 02:31 Why Terminal AI Agents Matter 06:54 Codex CLI - OpenAI's Terminal Agent 12:03 Charm Crush - Beautiful Terminal UI Agent 17:18 OpenCode - SST's Terminal Agent 20:13 Cursor CLI - From Cursor IDE Makers 24:10 Terminal AI Agents - Final Verdict