Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Droid CLI vs Paseo

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Droid CLI's 57.2 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Droid CLI leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do agent harnesses.

Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons

Which one, for what

Droid CLI C

Best for Teams that want a terminal coding agent with tiered autonomy, command rules and an optional sandbox, and that will pay for a Factory plan.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 79 against 65
  • Security & auth, 63 against 58

Watch for

No free tier or trial was found. Plans start at $20 a month and included usage is stated only as rolling rate limits without numbers

Paseo B

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

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source
  • No incidents deducted, where Droid CLI loses 3 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.

Payments & pricing Paseo +50

Droid CLI 10

Harness reading of the published rubric. This is paid, closed software tied to a subscription, so the self-hosted rule does not apply. No payment protocol (0). Plan prices are public, $20, $100 and $200 a month for individuals and $60 a team plus $40 a seat for Teams, but included usage is given only as rolling rate limits and multiples of Pro (10). No free tier or trial was found on the pricing pages. Using your own model key is free up to an allowance, but only on a paid plan (0). A person signs in through a browser to subscribe and to create the API key. The Service Accounts API can issue keys only inside an existing organisation (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.

Schema & documentation Droid CLI +14

Droid CLI 79

Framework reading. The docs index links an OpenAPI file for the Factory public API, which we did not open, and the headless mode has a documented JSON-RPC surface with named methods. droid exec --list-tools --output-format json and droid rules check --json give machine-readable output. We found no published schema for the settings file (15). docs.factory.com/llms.txt lists a Markdown copy of every page (10). The overview says when to use the CLI, and the autonomy table says what each level allows, blocks and suits (16). Autonomy levels, output formats, sandbox modes and MCP server fields are enumerated with types and defaults (12). Examples on every page read, exit codes 0, 1 and 2, and a JSON result with is_error and subtype, with no error catalogue (11). A changelog by CLI version with dates and an RSS feed, 236 entries back to 30 September 2025 (15).

Paseo 65

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

Security & auth Droid CLI +5

Droid CLI 63

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. The agent loop runs locally and the docs say no copy of the repository is uploaded or indexed. Prompts and context go to the model endpoints. Usage metrics go to Factory's collector by default, with no opt-out in the pages read outside an airgapped deployment, and message content is never sent to it. The security page says code is not used as training data. Zero data retention is listed as a Business plan item. Headless runs use a long-lived fk- key (17). droid exec is read-only by default, autonomy has four levels, permission rules allow, ask or block commands, and an OS sandbox confines commands with Seatbelt or bubblewrap and a network proxy. The sandbox is off by default and --skip-permissions-unsafe skips every prompt (16). The sandbox page names prompt injection and states what the sandbox does not stop, MCP approvals are bound to the server's command or URL, and Droid Shield scans commits for secrets. The Agent Safety page was not read (9). An organisation audit log, OpenTelemetry export and session tags exist, with audit logging listed from the Business plan up (10). A disclosure address (security@factory.com), SOC 2 and ISO 42001 named on the security page, per the 9 October check, and Security sections in the changelog. No security.txt (404 on 4 November), no bug bounty and no published advisories were found, OSV holds nothing for droid, and the trust centre was not readable (11).

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

CategoryWeight this runDroid CLIPaseoEdge
Reliability16%205450Droid CLI +4
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27965Droid CLI +14
Agent ergonomics13%16.27270Droid CLI +2
Security & auth14%17.56358Droid CLI +5
Payments & pricing10%12.51060Paseo +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87975Droid CLI +4
Transparency & trust7%8.86568Paseo +3
Negative events≤15-30
TotalC 57.2/100B 62.1/100

Facts side by side

FactDroid CLIPaseo
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorFactoryMohamed Boudra
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary, under Factory's Terms and Conditions. The droid npm package is marked UNLICENSED and the public repository holds documentation only. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-11-042026-11-07
Terms last updated2026-07-14no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-20no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot read yet
Popularity49 stars, 7.8k npm/wknone

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Droid CLI

droid exec is read-only unless --auto raises the autonomy level, with command rules, an optional kernel-enforced sandbox, JSON output and documented exit codes. No free tier, status page or security.txt was found, the source is closed, usage metrics go to Factory by default, and security fixes ship in release notes without advisories.

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

Droid CLI

  1. Set FACTORY_API_KEY (starts fk-) from the API keys page in Factory settings for headless runs. Interactive use signs in through a browser
  2. Start with droid exec and no flags for analysis. Add --auto low for edits and --auto medium for installs, tests and local commits
  3. Use --output-format json and read is_error, num_turns and session_id. Treat a non-zero exit code as failure
  4. Set sandbox.enabled to true before running on untrusted code. In droid exec a sandbox violation is denied without a prompt
  5. Pin the version in CI with npm install -g droid@<version>, or set FACTORY_DROID_AUTO_UPDATE_ENABLED=false on standalone installs, which update themselves. Read each release's Security section before upgrading

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, Droid CLI or Paseo?

Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Droid CLI's 57.2 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Droid CLI leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

Are Droid CLI and Paseo open source?

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

Other comparisons with Droid CLI or Paseo

Machine-readable

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