Is Gemini CLI free?
Yes, Gemini CLI offers a generous free tier. With Google login, you get 60 requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day using Gemini 2.5 Pro. With an API key, you get 100 requests per day free, with pay-as-you-go pricing available for more.
How does Gemini CLI compare to Claude Code?
Both are terminal-based AI coding agents. Gemini CLI has a more generous free tier (1000 req/day vs usage-based pricing), is fully open source, and integrates with Google Search for grounding. Claude Code uses Claude models known for nuanced code understanding. Choose Gemini CLI for free usage and large refactors, Claude Code for complex reasoning tasks.
What can Gemini CLI do?
Gemini CLI can understand and edit codebases, generate code from text or images, execute shell commands, perform file operations, search the web for context, integrate with GitHub for code reviews, and support custom tools via MCP (Model Context Protocol).
How do I install Gemini CLI?
You can run it without installation using npx @google/gemini-cli, install globally with npm install -g @google/gemini-cli, or use Homebrew with brew install gemini-cli. Requires Node.js 20 or higher.
Is Gemini CLI open source?
Yes, Gemini CLI is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license. The source code is available on GitHub and community contributions are welcome.