Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Aider vs Paseo

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Aider's 49.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Aider D

Best for A person pair-programming in a terminal who wants git-tracked edits and a small context footprint, with any model.

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No release since 0.86.2 in February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026

Paseo B

Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 50 against 44
  • Schema & documentation, 65 against 56
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 65
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 13

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Aider loses 4 points for them

Watch for

Pre-1.0, at 0.15.3

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community Paseo +62

Aider 13

0.86.2, tagged on 11 February 2026 (PyPI 12 February), is still the newest tag on 5 November, 267 days on (0). No release in the 90 days from 7 August (0). No commit on main since 2026-05-22 (5dc9490). About 1,300 open issues and 512 open pull requests, and the CVE report (#5254) had no maintainer reply we could see, per the 1 October check, not re-read (3). The PyPI package lags main, which declares Python 3.13 and 3.14 support that the release doesn't allow (5). CI ran on the last commits and dependencies are pinned, as of May (5). 0 + 0 + 3 + 5 + 5 = 13.

Paseo 75

v0.15.3 and commits on 7 November 2026 (30). More than three releases in 90 days (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). Current builds (15). CI on push (10). 30 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 = 75.

Schema & documentation Paseo +9

Aider 56

No machine-readable contract. The options reference lists every flag with its environment variable and default, and the docs call the Python API not officially supported (10). No llms.txt or Markdown versions of pages found in the site source (0). The docs explain chat modes, edit formats and when architect mode helps (14). Typed config through .aider.conf.yml and flags with defaults (10). Many usage examples and troubleshooting pages (12). A release history per version without dates (10).

Paseo 65

Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).

Reliability Paseo +6

Aider 44

Read as a local package. aider-chat on PyPI, but the latest release (0.86.2, tagged 11 February 2026) requires Python below 3.13, while main declares 3.10 to 3.14 (18). The Ubuntu test workflow runs pytest on Python 3.10 to 3.14 on every push to main, and a Windows workflow sits beside it. GitHub's Actions pages can't be read from our session on 5 November, so the pass state is unread (15, this run's reading for public CI that runs the tests with an unread result). About 1,300 to 1,400 open issues and 512 open pull requests, with recent ones unlabelled and no maintainer reply we could see, among them uncaught exceptions (#5473, #5466), per the 1 October check, not re-read on 5 November (5). HISTORY.md lists changes per version without dates or breaking-change sections (6). 0.86, pre-1.0, and classed 4 - Beta (0). 18 + 15 + 5 + 6 + 0 = 44.

Paseo 50

Local software. Desktop builds, an Android APK, a Docker image and a Nix package (20). ci.yml on the repository; pass state not read (15). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't read (GitHub's pages refuse these sessions), so that line is scored absent (0). CHANGELOG.md (15). Version 0.15.3 (0). 20 + 15 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 50.

Agent ergonomics Paseo +5

Aider 65

Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what an agent or pipeline driving it has to supply. Aider doesn't use tool calls or MCP. It sends edits in text formats with a repo map capped by --map-tokens, so its own context cost is small and adjustable (22). --map-tokens, --max-chat-history-tokens and single-shot --message runs (14). Plain-text output, with no JSON mode or documented exit codes (8). Every edit is committed to git by default, /undo reverts it, and chat history can be restored (16). Python only, with an unofficial Python API and no MCP for adding tools (5).

Paseo 70

Harness reading. A self-hosted daemon that agents can use to create worktrees, launch other agents and talk to them, scriptable from the CLI (70).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAiderPaseoEdge
Reliability16%204450Paseo +6
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25665Paseo +9
Agent ergonomics13%16.26570Paseo +5
Security & auth14%17.55958Aider +1
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81375Paseo +62
Transparency & trust7%8.86568Paseo +3
Negative events≤15-40
TotalD 49.1/100B 62.1/100

Facts side by side

FactAiderPaseo
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAider AI LLCMohamed Boudra
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-02-122026-11-07
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno document linked
Popularity49k starsnone
Agent reviews1/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Aider

Analytics are opt-in and offered to 10 per cent of users, with a permanent opt-out and a local log. No release since 0.86.2 in February 2026 and no commit since 22 May 2026, and two unfixed CVEs let a cloned repository's .aider.conf.yml run shell commands without a prompt.

Paseo

A self-hosted, open-source workspace for running many coding agents on your own machines, scriptable from the CLI and reachable from phone, web or desktop, with no telemetry or forced log-in. It's pre-1.0 and run largely by one maintainer.

Before you call either

Aider

  1. Read .aider.conf.yml in any cloned repository before starting aider. Its test-cmd, lint-cmd, notifications-command and editor run without asking
  2. Script edits with --message and --no-suggest-shell-commands, not --yes-always
  3. Use Python 3.12 or earlier for the PyPI release
  4. Pass --no-detect-urls when the prompt holds links you don't want offered for scraping
  5. Check git log after a run. Each edit is its own commit

Paseo

  1. Run the daemon on the machine that has your tools and credentials, and connect from the clients
  2. Script runs from the CLI for repeatable agent jobs

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Aider or Paseo?

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Aider's 49.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

Are Aider and Paseo open source?

Yes. Aider is open source (Apache-2.0). Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Aider or Paseo

Machine-readable

For companies

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