Gemini CLI vs Claude Code: I Tested Both for 2 Weeks

Question

Google shipped Gemini CLI last month. Free tier, open source,
1,000 requests/day. No credit card required.

I compared it against Claude Code on real codebases for two weeks.
Here's what the data shows:

Where Gemini CLI wins:

• 1M token context window — entire codebase in memory at once
• Simple tasks: unit tests, type errors, quick fixes
• These fill 60-70% of a typical dev day
• Quality gap with Claude largely disappears here

Where Claude Code wins:

• Multi-file refactoring (10+ files)
• Complex architectural changes
• Picking up existing code patterns

The routing rule:
One question handles 90% of decisions — does this task require
system-level understanding, or is it a single-file operation?

One developer tracked this for a week. Dropped from $200/mo to $20/mo.