# Gemini CLI 172 Hacker News commenters recommended Gemini CLI and 321 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0.25 years (9 owners). **Verdict:** Google's terminal coding agent is liked for its generous free tier, polished interface and strong one-shot results, but critics cite rate limits, bugs, eager code edits and its planned discontinuation. ## Why people recommend it - Builds working code from English (9 comments): "Just this afternoon Gemini 3 via the Gemini CLI fixed a whole slate of bugs that Claude Code simply could not, basically in one shot." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46041481)) "Gemini just made me Linux GCODE displayer just by repeatedly viewing the picture and modifying the code, all by itself." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199331)) "gemini-cli the url and asked for a script. The LLMs are pretty good at this sort of simple but tedious implementation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252521)) - Generous free tier, cost effective (5 comments): "I initially enjoyed the 5-hour limits on Gemini CLI and Antigravity so much that I paid for a full year" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740131)) "I strongly encourage you to try one out (even if it's just something on the free tier eg. gemini-cli)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081048)) "Antigravity, Jules, and Gemini CLI are as good as the alternatives but are way more cost effective." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46857090)) - Nice terminal interface (3 comments): "Gemini CLI was never a contender (between log in/activation/rate limits - wth), will say though that Gemini CLI has the nicest terminal UI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45986781)) "It's a Frankenstein('s monster) of a project from all perspectives, which is a shame, since I'm rather fond of the interface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48218091)) "The UI is better - they box the specific types of actions the orchestrator agent takes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46351980)) - First-party harness supports model best (2 comments): "harnesses created by the model providers (OpenAI/Codex CLI, Anthropic/Claude Code, Google/Gemini CLI) tend to be better than generalist harnesses" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46786060)) "You can usually count on Claude Code or Codex or Gemini CLI to support the model features the best" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46401628)) ## What people warn about - Rate limits and Flash fallback (5 comments): "When I run out of Gemini 2.5 Pro and it falls back to the Flash model, the Flash model is absolute trash for sure." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785969)) "They drastically reduced limits on their best model so that's likely how you got stuck downgrading model" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48235067)) "Gemini CLI was never a contender (between log in/activation/rate limits - wth), will say though that Gemini CLI has the nicest terminal UI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45986781)) - Lags behind Claude Code, Codex (3 comments): "my only use case for it now is triple checking specifications for drift inconsistencies beyond that I find it pretty lacking compared to codex and cc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48210730)) "The free model is a distant third for coding, but it's fine for leaf node work in a larger project." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907301)) "it's very good (but the cli and the user experience are not on par with codex or claude yet)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46391777)) - Writes code despite instructions (3 comments): "Generally I found no amount of this last part would stop Gemini CLI from trying to write code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47358169)) "in the Gemini CLI with a prompt like, "I'd like to add support. What are my options? Don't write any code yet" it will proceed to skip right past telling me my options" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46857207)) "Gemini is so trigger happy, the moment you don’t tell it „don’t make any changes“ it runs off and starts doing all kind of unrelated refactorings." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47008835)) - Being discontinued and replaced (4 comments): "gemini-cli sucks but Google sucks even more but discontinuing it to relaunch it with another name a tool that still sucks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48206369)) "Google really can't help themselves but to have some internal re-org kill off a public thing people are actively using." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201329)) "Gemini Cli was already losing and it’s now being replaced by something they’re saying doesn’t yet have feature parity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48207237)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Claude Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code.md): 4522 recommend - [OpenAI Codex](https://hackerapproved.com/p/codex.md): 2474 recommend - [OpenCode](https://hackerapproved.com/p/opencode.md): 1060 recommend - [Cline](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cline.md): 63 recommend - [Mistral Vibe](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mistral-vibe.md): 57 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Gemini CLI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gemini-cli/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).