# Droid CLI vs Paseo

> Paseo scores 62.1 (B) to Droid CLI's 57.2 (C) for agent harnesses. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-paseo
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/droid-cli-vs-paseo.md (~5,150 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 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.

- Droid CLI: grade C, 57.2/100, rank #805 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/droid-cli.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/droid-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

### Droid CLI (C)

Good 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)

Good 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

### 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

| Category | Weight | Droid CLI | Paseo | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 54 | 50 | Droid CLI +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 65 | Droid CLI +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 70 | Droid CLI +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 58 | Droid CLI +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 60 | Paseo +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 75 | Droid CLI +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 68 | Paseo +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.2 · C** | **62.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Droid CLI | Paseo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Factory | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, 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-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-14 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-20 | 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 | yes | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not read yet |
| Popularity | 49 stars, 7.8k npm/wk | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Droid CLI

- -2.0 on 4 November 2026: security, product
- +0.1 on 28 October 2026: checklist

### Paseo

No score change since it was listed.

## 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).


## For agents

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

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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