Head to head · Multi-agent orchestration · October 2026 research run
CLI Manager vs Paseo
CLI Manager scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Paseo leads on agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do multi-agent orchestration.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for A developer on macOS who runs several coding agents and wants another agent to start and watch sessions where the person can see and step in.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 68 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 65
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
Once switched on, the API can read, type into and close every session in the app, including the user's own
Paseo B
Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.
Ahead on
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 65
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 58
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
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.
Schema & documentation CLI Manager +22
CLI Manager 87
The MCP server lists 27 tools (12 on 14 October; checklist, inbox, session-folder and relation tools were added between v1.18.0 and v1.24.0), each with a typed JSON Schema input and required fields marked. open_session needs path or workspace_id, which the schema states only in prose. No OpenAPI for the REST side (22). llms.txt at climanager.solhun.com (10). Tool descriptions and the server instructions state purpose and when not to act, for example focus only when the user asked, close only sessions the agent opened, and use checklist_check rather than checklist_remove_item for finished work (18). Enums on scope, mode, status and kind. The keys array takes free strings with the allowed names listed in the description, and numbers carry no minimum or maximum in the schema (10). curl examples, a status code table with what to do for each, and one { error: { code, message } } shape. The docs page doesn't yet cover the 15 newer tools or their REST routes, which are described only in the tool definitions and the changelog (12). REST lives under /v1, with release notes and a site changelog (15).
Paseo 65
Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).
Reliability CLI Manager +18
CLI Manager 68
Read as local software. Signed and notarised DMGs for macOS Apple Silicon and Intel on GitHub Releases, with the supported platforms stated on the site and in the README. No package registry (20). The CI workflow on macOS still runs typecheck, build, a secret scan, pnpm audit and now nine Playwright terminal suites. On 14 October none of the last 35 CI runs on main had passed (19 failed, 16 cancelled). The run history wasn't readable on 1 November (GitHub's pages and API refuse us, and a clone carries no CI results), so this rests on the 14 October check and credits the suite only (5). No issue count could be read on 1 November. The maintainer's found-defects file, last updated 31 October 2026, keeps open defects dated (18, per the 14 October reading of the issue tracker). Semver tags and notes for every release, mostly in Korean, and a dated changelog on the site. Breaking changes are not marked as such (10). Version 1.24.0, past 1.0 since 4 December 2025 (15).
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.
Maintenance & community Paseo +13
CLI Manager 62
v1.24.0 on 1 November 2026 (30). 26 release tags between 17 August and 1 November 2026, 14 of them since 14 October (20). Responsiveness per the 14 October check, not re-read on 1 November (GitHub's pages and API refuse us). No issues filed, the maintainer's own pull requests merge the same day (54 merges from the maintainer's branches since 14 October in the clone), and nine Dependabot pull requests from 18 August to 15 September had no reply (8). Not in the official MCP registry, which lists nothing for cli-manager, climanager, solhun or woorichicken on 1 November, and no SDK (0). Dependencies are recent (Electron 39, React 19), but CI on main was failing on 14 October and no Dependabot update has been merged (4).
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.
Transparency & trust Paseo +10
CLI Manager 58
MIT in LICENSE and as detected by GitHub, while package.json still declares ISC at v1.24.0 (27). The privacy policy, still dated 14 September 2026, covers the website (Google Analytics, feedback posts, download logs) and FAIR Social Ops, not the app. The site FAQ and llms.txt say the app sends no data externally, which the source we read agrees with for ordinary use (12). No deprecation policy. Dated release notes only (4). No telemetry found to disclose. A feedback widget added in v1.14.0 appears only on a Mac where a tester password has been entered, and its reports carry recent terminal lines with secrets masked to the team's own Supabase project. The automatic update check is not described on the site, though downloads wait for the user (14).
Paseo 68
Apache 2.0 for everything but third-party components (30). No telemetry and agents run on your machine (22 of 30). CHANGELOG.md, no deprecation policy (10). States no telemetry (20). 30 + 22 + 10 + 20 = 82.
Agent ergonomics Paseo +5
CLI Manager 65
27 compact tools, in the 11 to 30 band (15). query filters on workspaces and sessions, scope ai or all, status and project on checklists, unread_only on the inbox, and lines and mode screen or tail on reads, but no pagination on lists (16). Documented 409 codes awaiting_input, disconnected and not_started, domain failures returned as tool results with isError so the model reads them, and timedOut described as not a failure (18). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations, and open_session repeated opens a second session. Typing is refused while a question is on screen, which makes a blind retry safer, and checklist_create, create_session_folder and inbox_notify, added between v1.18.0 and v1.24.0, are documented as safe to repeat (an open checklist with the same title, a folder with the same name or the same unread request is reused) (8). Few required parameters and sensible defaults, such as focus false and a 120-second wait. No SDK, only the climanager-session agent skill with a Node script (8).
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
| Category | Weight this run | CLI Manager | Paseo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 68 | 50 | CLI Manager +18 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 87 | 65 | CLI Manager +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 65 | 70 | Paseo +5 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 58 | 58 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 62 | 75 | Paseo +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 58 | 68 | Paseo +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | B 66.4/100 | B 62.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | CLI Manager | Paseo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | solhun (Jeong Kyeonghun) | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 27 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-14 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-14 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | 15 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Paseo
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
CLI Manager
An agent can open visible terminal sessions, type into them, wait, read the screen and keep shared checklists through 27 typed MCP tools or a local REST API, and the user can take any session back. Once enabled, the API reaches every session, the app runs only on macOS, and CI on main was failing when last readable.
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
CLI Manager
- Ask the user to switch on Settings > Agents > AI Control API first, then read the URL and token from
~/.climanager/control-api.json - On
409 awaiting_input, read the screen and answer withkeyssuch as ["down","enter"]. Leave folder-trust and permission choices to the user - Stop using a session on
409 disconnected. The user took it back - Treat
timedOut: truefromwait_for_idleas still running, not as a failure, and wait again - Don't read an inbox request's read state as the user having opened your session. Since v1.22.0 the user marks each one read by hand, though the tool text says otherwise
Paseo
- Run the daemon on the machine that has your tools and credentials, and connect from the clients
- Script runs from the CLI for repeatable agent jobs
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, CLI Manager or Paseo?
CLI Manager scores 66.4 (B) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Paseo leads on agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.
Are CLI Manager and Paseo open source?
Yes. CLI Manager is open source (MIT). Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).
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- CLI Manager vs Muse Code
- CLI Manager vs OpenCode
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- CLI Manager vs Orca
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- CLI Manager vs Sculptor
- CLI Manager vs T3 Code
- CLI Manager vs Traycer
- CLI Manager vs Unstoppable
- CLI Manager vs Verdent
- CLI Manager vs Vibe-Trading
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- Harness vs Paseo
- OpenMausBot vs Paseo
- Paperclip vs Paseo
- Parallax vs Paseo
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/cli-manager-vs-paseo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/cli-manager.json·/api/v1/tools/paseo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare cli-manager paseo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "cli-manager", "b": "paseo"}at/mcp, no key