Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
Crush vs Paseo
Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 49.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on maintenance & community. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Crush D
Best for Developers who want a Go terminal agent with a wide provider list, local models and Claude Code-compatible hooks.
Ahead on
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 75
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
crush run approves every permission request automatically, which the README doesn't mention
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 52
- Security & auth, 58 against 41
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 55
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 59
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Crush loses 6 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.
Agent ergonomics Paseo +18
Crush 52
Harness reading, scored on what an agent or pipeline driving crush run has to supply. About 20 built-in tools, any of which permissions deny hides, MCP servers take per-server disabled_tools, and skills can be turned off or kept out of the model's list. No lazy loading of MCP tools found (17). No turn, time or cost limit on crush run, and the only output controls are --quiet and --verbose (6). Errors come back as plain messages with a non-zero exit, such as the one for an unconfigured provider, with no documented codes and no JSON error record (8). --session and --continue resume a run, and crush session list, show, last, rename and delete take --json (13). One argument starts a run and environment keys are picked up, but there's no SDK, and the HTTP API needs CRUSH_CLIENT_SERVER=1 and is described only in one README section (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).
Security & auth Paseo +17
Crush 41
Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Usage metrics go to PostHog through data.charm.land by default, keyed to a hashed machine ID, aliased to the Hyper user ID after a Hyper login, and including error messages. The README says prompts and responses are never collected and names two opt-outs (CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1 and DO_NOT_TRACK=1). The provider list is fetched from Catwalk at startup unless turned off, the update check only notifies, and provider keys stay local (15). The TUI asks before bash, edit, write, fetch, download and MCP calls, permissions deny hides tools and PreToolUse hooks can block calls. But crush run approves every permission request in its session automatically (internal/app/app.go in v0.99.0), --yolo skips all prompts, and there's no sandbox, only a refusal list for curl, wget, ssh, sudo, package managers and similar commands (7). No prompt-injection guidance found, and a project's .crushrc and $(...) in crush.json run as code at startup, which the README warns about (3). Logs in ./.crush/logs/crush.log with crush logs, sessions in a local database readable as JSON, and crush stats, with no OpenTelemetry export (9). The organisation's SECURITY.md is a disclosure policy with a reporting address (vt100@charm.sh) and no response time. CI runs CodeQL, Grype and govulncheck nightly and releases are cosign-signed. OSV lists no advisory for the npm package or the Go module. No security.txt and no bug bounty. A disclosure route with no stated time is this run's 7 (was 10). 15 + 7 + 3 + 9 + 7 = 41.
Paseo 58
Harness reading. The README says no telemetry, tracking or forced log-ins (30 of 30). Worktree per agent, on your own machine (10 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance (5). No audit log (5). SECURITY.md (8). 30 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 8 = 58.
Transparency & trust Paseo +9
Crush 59
FSL-1.1-MIT, source-available, barring competing commercial use and converting each release to MIT on its second anniversary. Code from before 30 May 2025 is MIT. Not an OSI licence today (20). No privacy policy or terms for Crush were found on charm.land, and Hyper's legal pages render by script and weren't read. The README says Hyper is zero-data-retention, while Hyper's own app says some plans aren't and that usage on them may train Hyper's models, so the statements don't agree (8). The JSON config is marked deprecated with no removal date, and no deprecation policy was found (6). The README discloses usage metrics, links the source, says prompts aren't collected and gives two opt-outs, but doesn't mention the alias to the Hyper account (15).
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.
Maintenance & community Crush +7
Crush 82
v0.99.0 tagged on 29 October 2026 (6 days, 30). 21 release tags from 7 August to 29 October, v0.88.1 to v0.99.0, besides a moving nightly tag that isn't counted (20). The 18 October shields.io counts are struck. The repository's refs show 147 merges into main and 438 commits in the 90 days to 4 November, with 272 open pull requests carrying a merge ref, and new contributors signing the CLA most days. Reply times couldn't be read (12). No SDK, as with other harnesses. npm, Homebrew, Winget, Scoop, apt, yum and NUR builds come from the release workflow (12, held partial). Dependabot, a go mod tidy check in CI and nightly security scans, with CI results unread (8). 30 + 20 + 12 + 12 + 8 = 82.
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.
Payments & pricing Paseo +5
Crush 55
No payment protocol (0). Scored on Charm's Hyper provider. Its public provider file at hyper.charm.land/v1/provider lists per-million-token figures for 22 models without a login, but no pricing page confirms them as billed rates, and plan prices sit in a script-rendered app (15). The CLI is free to use and runs with your own provider key or a local model, so nothing needs a card (20). A local model through Ollama, llama.cpp or LM Studio, or an existing provider key in the environment, works with no Charm account, so an agent can install it and run a task without a person signing up (20).
Paseo 60
Free self-hosted software with nothing to buy, so 0 for a protocol and 20 each for public pricing, a free tier and onboarding with no sign-up, 60.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Crush | Paseo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 52 | 50 | Crush +2 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 65 | 65 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 52 | 70 | Paseo +18 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 41 | 58 | Paseo +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 55 | 60 | Paseo +5 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 82 | 75 | Crush +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 59 | 68 | Paseo +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| Total | D 49.8/100 | B 62.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Crush | Paseo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Charm | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | FSL-1.1-MIT (source-available, each release converts to MIT two years after it is made available) | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 29k stars, 5.6k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Paseo
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Crush
Works with almost any provider or a local model and needs no Charm account. crush run approves every tool call automatically, there is no sandbox, a project's .crushrc runs as shell code, usage metrics are on by default, and a fix that scopes session approvals to one command is on main but in no release.
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
Crush
- Add
permissions denyrules or a PreToolUse hook beforecrush run. It approves every permission request in its session, and a session approval in v0.99.0 covers later commands in the same directory - Read
.crushrc,crushrcandcrush.jsonin a cloned repository before running Crush there. They execute as shell code at startup - Set
CRUSH_DISABLE_METRICS=1orDO_NOT_TRACK=1to stop usage metrics to data.charm.land - Wrap
crush runin your own timeout. It has no turn, time or cost limit flag - Configure a provider by environment variable or
crushrcfirst. With none,crush runexits with an error asking for interactive setup
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, Crush or Paseo?
Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Crush's 49.8 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Crush leads on maintenance & community.
Are Crush and Paseo open source?
No open-source release is listed for Crush. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with Crush or Paseo
- Agent Zero vs Crush
- Agent Zero vs Paseo
- Aider vs Crush
- Aider vs Paseo
- Amp vs Crush
- Amp vs Paseo
- Antigravity CLI vs Crush
- Antigravity CLI vs Paseo
- Auggie CLI vs Crush
- Auggie CLI vs Paseo
- AXLR vs Crush
- AXLR vs Paseo
- Claude Code vs Crush
- Claude Code vs Paseo
- Cline vs Crush
- Cline vs Paseo
- Conductor vs Crush
- Conductor vs Paseo
- Crush vs Cursor CLI
- Crush vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)
- Crush vs dsh-superagent (DeepSeek)
- Crush vs Devin
- Crush vs Droid CLI
- Crush vs Pi
- Crush vs Emdash
- Crush vs Gemini CLI
- Crush vs GitHub Copilot CLI
- Crush vs goose
- Crush vs Harness²
- Crush vs HarnessRouter
- Crush vs Jules
- Crush vs Junie CLI
- Crush vs Kilo Code CLI
- Crush vs Kimi Code CLI
- Crush vs Kiro CLI
- Crush vs Letta
- Crush vs mini-swe-agent
- Crush vs MiniMax Code
- Crush vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- Crush vs Muse Code
- Crush vs OpenAI Agents API
- Crush vs OpenAI Codex
- Crush vs OpenCode
- Crush vs OpenHands
- Crush vs OpenMausBot
- Crush vs Orca
- Crush vs Prime Agent
- Crush vs Qoder CLI
- Crush vs Qwen Code
- Crush vs Mirror CLI
- Crush vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Crush vs Sculptor
- Crush vs T3 Code
- Crush vs Traycer
- Crush vs Unstoppable
- Crush vs Verdent
- Crush vs Vibe-Trading
- Crush vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- Cursor CLI vs Paseo
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Paseo
- dsh-superagent (DeepSeek) vs Paseo
- Devin vs Paseo
- Droid CLI vs Paseo
- Pi vs Paseo
- Emdash vs Paseo
- Gemini CLI vs Paseo
- GitHub Copilot CLI vs Paseo
- goose vs Paseo
- Harness² vs Paseo
- HarnessRouter vs Paseo
- Jules vs Paseo
- Junie CLI vs Paseo
- Kilo Code CLI vs Paseo
- Kimi Code CLI vs Paseo
- Kiro CLI vs Paseo
- Letta vs Paseo
- mini-swe-agent vs Paseo
- MiniMax Code vs Paseo
- Mistral Vibe CLI vs Paseo
- Muse Code vs Paseo
- OpenAI Agents API vs Paseo
- OpenAI Codex vs Paseo
- OpenCode vs Paseo
- OpenHands vs Paseo
- Orca vs Paseo
- Paseo vs Prime Agent
- Paseo vs Qoder CLI
- Paseo vs Qwen Code
- Paseo vs Mirror CLI
- Paseo vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Paseo vs Sculptor
- Paseo vs T3 Code
- Paseo vs Traycer
- Paseo vs Unstoppable
- Paseo vs Verdent
- Paseo vs Vibe-Trading
- Paseo vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- Clawboo vs Crush
- Clawboo vs Paseo
- CLI Manager vs Crush
- CLI Manager vs Paseo
- Crush vs Harness
- Crush vs Paperclip
- Crush vs Parallax
- Harness vs Paseo
- OpenMausBot vs Paseo
- Paperclip vs Paseo
- Parallax vs Paseo
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/crush-vs-paseo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/crush.json·/api/v1/tools/paseo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare crush paseo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "crush", "b": "paseo"}at/mcp, no key