# Cursor CLI vs Paseo

> Paseo scores 62.1 (B) to Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-paseo
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-paseo.md (~5,250 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent harnesses.

- Cursor CLI: grade F, 35.4/100, rank #1374 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cursor-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json
- Paseo: grade B, 62.1/100, rank #575 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/paseo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paseo.json
- Best agent harnesses and coding agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-harnesses/index.md
- All 1500 harnesses comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-harnesses/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cursor CLI (F)

Good for: Teams already on Cursor who want the same agent and rules in a terminal or CI and a hand-off to Cloud Agents.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No CLI changelog, and versions are dates

### Paseo (B)

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

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 50 against 27
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 39
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 42
- Security & auth, 58 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 62
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 60

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where Cursor CLI loses 5 points for them

Watch for: Pre-1.0, at 0.15.3


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: Paseo +35

- Cursor CLI (25): Harness reading of the published rubric. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices are public, but included usage isn't given in dollars or requests (10). Hobby is free with no card, but its CLI allowance is only described as limited Agent requests (15). A person signs in through a browser to use it or to get an API key (0).
- 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.

### Agent ergonomics: Paseo +28

- Cursor CLI (42): Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP tools can be allowed or denied per server and tool with Mcp(server:tool), and we found nothing on deferred loading (10). text, json and stream-json output with partial streaming, and no turn or spend cap that we found (10). No documented error format or exit codes (5). `--resume` and `--continue` (12). A headless run needs `--trust`, and `--force` to run commands without prompts, and we found no SDK (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).

### Schema & documentation: Paseo +26

- Cursor CLI (39): Framework reading. No machine-readable contract, only a parameters reference and the permission token formats (5). cursor.com/llms.txt lists the CLI pages with Markdown twins (10). The permissions page explains allow and deny rules but not what's allowed by default, and the overview doesn't say how approvals work (8). Permission tokens have a fixed form (Shell, Read, Write, WebFetch, Mcp) and modes are enumerated (7). Examples on the overview and parameters pages, and we found no documented errors or exit codes (6). No CLI changelog, and versions are dates (3).
- Paseo (65): Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).

### Reliability: Paseo +23

- Cursor CLI (27): Local-package reading. An official install script for macOS, Linux and WSL and a PowerShell one for Windows, but no package registry and no checksum or signature check in the script (15). No public CI or test suite, since the source isn't published (0). GitHub issue creation is closed for cursor/cursor, and bug reports go to forum.cursor.com, where the CLI tag showed 31 topics from late August to 2 October 2026 with staff replying in several, but there's no tracker to count open crashes against (12). Date-based versions (2026.09.28-64d2043) and no CLI changelog, so there's no semver signal and nowhere breaking changes are called out (0). Not 1.0 and not declared stable. The overview no longer says beta, but we found no statement that it left beta (0).
- 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

- Cursor CLI (62): Version 2026.09.28-64d2043, dated 28 September 2026 (30). Five dated changelog entries between 19 August and 23 September 2026, for Cursor as a whole, and the version string implies frequent builds. Judgement call, since none of the entries is CLI-only (20). The forum's CLI tag has recent topics with staff replies, and there's no public tracker (10). No SDK found (0). No public CI, and an installer without integrity checks (2).
- 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.

### Security & auth: Paseo +12

- Cursor CLI (46): Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. We found no description of what the CLI sends home. Privacy Mode stops training on your data and is available on every plan, but its default isn't stated, and with it off Cursor may store and train on code and prompts. Headless runs use a long-lived API key (8). Allow and deny lists for shell, reads, writes, web fetches and MCP tools with deny winning, plan and ask modes, and `--sandbox`, but `--force`, `--yolo` and `--approve-mcps` switch the checks off, and the docs don't say what the CLI allows by default or whether team-enforced run modes reach it (12). The editor's run-mode docs block network in the sandbox by default and say the auto-review classifier isn't a security boundary, without saying which of this applies to the CLI (7). Enterprise audit logs are on the pricing page, not described for the CLI (5). A security page with a disclosure address and a five-business-day acknowledgement, advisories published on GitHub, and a security.txt contact, but no bug bounty that we found (14). SOC 2 and ISO 27001 aren't scored on the framework reading.
- 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.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cursor CLI | Paseo | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 27 | 50 | Paseo +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 39 | 65 | Paseo +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 70 | Paseo +28 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 58 | Paseo +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | Paseo +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 75 | Paseo +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 68 | Paseo +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **35.4 · F** | **62.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cursor CLI | Paseo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cursor | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Cursor's terms of service (Anysphere, Inc., updated 3 September 2026). No source is published | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-03 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-29 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Cursor CLI

- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist
- -0.5 on 8 October 2026: checklist

### Paseo

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Cursor CLI.** Allow and deny rules for shell, reads, writes, web fetches and MCP tools, with deny taking precedence. No CLI changelog, and versions are dates.

**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

### Cursor CLI

1. Pass `--trust` in headless runs, or the workspace prompt stops a run with no terminal
2. Write deny rules in .cursor/cli.json before using `--force`. It runs any command they don't match
3. Don't use `--approve-mcps` in repositories you didn't write. Two 2025 CLI advisories came through MCP
4. Set `CURSOR_API_KEY` in CI. `agent login` opens a browser
5. Record `agent --version` with each run. Versions are dates and there's no CLI changelog to compare against

### 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, Cursor CLI or Paseo?

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Cursor CLI's 35.4 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Cursor CLI and Paseo open source?

No open-source release is listed for Cursor CLI. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-paseo.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-paseo.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "cursor-cli", "b": "paseo"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare cursor-cli paseo`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cursor-cli.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paseo.json

## Other comparisons with Cursor CLI or Paseo

- [Agent Zero vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Agent Zero vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-zero-vs-paseo.md)
- [Aider vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Aider vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aider-vs-paseo.md)
- [Amp vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Amp vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amp-vs-paseo.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Antigravity CLI vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/antigravity-cli-vs-paseo.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Auggie CLI vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auggie-vs-paseo.md)
- [AXLR vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [AXLR vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/axlr-vs-paseo.md)
- [Claude Code vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Claude Code vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/claude-code-vs-paseo.md)
- [Cline vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cline-vs-cursor-cli.md)
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- [Conductor vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/conductor-vs-cursor-cli.md)
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- [Crush vs Cursor CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-cursor-cli.md)
- [Crush vs Paseo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crush-vs-paseo.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs DeepSeek Harness (dsh)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-deepseek-harness.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs dsh-superagent (DeepSeek)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-deepseek-superagent.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Devin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-devin.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Droid CLI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-droid-cli.md)
- [Cursor CLI vs Pi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-earendil-pi.md)
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- [Cursor CLI vs goose](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cursor-cli-vs-goose.md)
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---

Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp