# Kimi CLI

9 Hacker News commenters recommended Kimi CLI and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free open-source coding agent CLI that people pair with Kimi models and find pretty good. The most common caveat is that it leaks memory.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well with Kimi models (3 comments): "Kimi works great in their CLI, but their CLI has a number of workarounds for quirks of their models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48505237)) "I have been very impressed with this model and also with the Kimi CLI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46831419)) "Kimi performs better with kimi-cli and also save a bit of quota." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48322062))
- Used regularly with Kimi subscription (2 comments): "after using Kimi K2.5 and Kimi CLI for the last few days" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46796094)) "I use Kimi via a kimi.com subscription and Kimi CLI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47993501))

## What people warn about

- Leaks memory (1 comments): "I like Kimi-cli but it does leak memory." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46831318))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [GitHub Copilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-copilot.md): 571 recommend
- [oh-my-pi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oh-my-pi.md): 104 recommend
- [Grok Build CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok-build.md): 66 recommend
- [DeepSeek Harness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deepseek-harness.md): 63 recommend
- [Claude Code VS Code extension](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code-vs-code-extension.md): 31 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Kimi CLI", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kimi-cli/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).