Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
goose vs Paseo
goose scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
goose BB
Best for People and pipelines that want one agent across many model providers or local models, with recipes for repeatable jobs and a desktop app for non-engineers.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 77 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 70
- Security & auth, 77 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 75
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default
Paseo B
Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where goose loses 5 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.
Reliability goose +27
goose 77
Read as a local package, which is how the 1 October dossier read it. Desktop builds and a CLI for macOS, Linux and Windows (a Windows NSIS installer from 1.56.0), Homebrew casks, a download script on GitHub releases, an npm package that installs the binary (@aaif/goose-acp) and a GHCR image, with Rust 1.94.1 as the minimum for source builds (20). A CI workflow runs on every push to main, with cargo-deny, cargo-machete, MCP and tool-call conformance and an OpenSSF Scorecard job beside it. The Actions page loaded on 1 October showed only passing runs from March 2026, and GitHub pages refused our requests on 6 and 17 October and 1 November, so the current state is unconfirmed (18). 266 to 271 open issues on 1 October, many from that week with no reply, including open reports that the default mode approves every tool call (#12567) and that schedules can overwrite each other (#12613), per the 1 October check, not re-read since (15). Weekly minor releases with notes written by a release-notes workflow whose sections are Features, Bug Fixes, Improvements and Documentation, with no breaking-change section. 1.55.0 dropped background subagents (delegate(..., async: true) and GOOSE_MAX_BACKGROUND_TASKS) and 1.57.0 dropped the developer tools that delegated file reads and terminal commands to an ACP editor, each edited out of the code and docs with no earlier notice (9). 1.57, stable (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.
Security & auth goose +19
goose 77
Harness reading of the framework checklist, used for all five harnesses in this batch. 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 data is off until the user agrees on first use, and the docs list what's collected and what isn't (30). Four modes (autonomous, smart approval, manual approval, chat only), per-tool always, ask or never rules, and an extension allowlist fetched from GOOSE_ALLOWLIST, which from 1.57.0 must be HTTPS and blocks installs when the policy can't be read, but autonomous is the default (the first-run prompt for the mode still preselects Auto in 1.57.0) and there's no sandbox, with the docs pointing to a VM or container (11). Pattern and optional ML prompt-injection detection and an adversary reviewer for shell calls, both off until turned on, plus a prompt-injection caution in SECURITY.md (11). Session logs, a diagnostics report and a Langfuse tracing guide (12). SECURITY.md with GitHub private reporting and an AAIF governance contact, one advisory published with a CVE, and a Scorecard workflow. A second CVE, CVE-2026-109561 (low, Manual Approval bypassed by persisted read-only annotations after Smart Approval, fixed in 1.44.0), was published by NVD on 12 October from a third party, with no goose advisory of its own. No bug bounty, and goose-docs.ai/.well-known/security.txt returned 404 on 6 and 17 October and 1 November (13).
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.
Schema & documentation goose +16
goose 81
Recipes have a documented schema with typed parameters and a response JSON Schema for structured output, and config and environment variables are documented in tables, but we found no OpenAPI spec for the goose server (18). llms.txt at goose-docs.ai, which now covers goose and the goose Development Kit (10). Permission modes come with a best-for column and the security pages say what each guard catches and misses (15). Recipe parameters take types and requirement levels, and retries take typed success checks (12). Many tutorials, a headless guide that tells scripts to check exit codes, and a known-issues page (13). Dated, written notes on every GitHub release, with no changelog file (13).
Paseo 65
Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).
Agent ergonomics goose +12
goose 82
Harness reading of the framework line, scored on what an agent or pipeline driving it has to supply. The built-in extensions are few, and Code Mode lets the model find MCP tools through code instead of loading every definition (23). --max-turns (default 1000), GOOSE_MAX_TOKENS and automatic context compaction, though 1000 turns is a high default for an unattended run (16). goose run --output-format json or stream-json for scripts (15). Recipes can retry with success checks and an on_failure command, and sessions resume (17). A Rust core with Python and Java SDK builds, and one command runs a task, but a provider has to be configured first and the default mode approves everything (11).
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).
Maintenance & community goose +11
goose 86
v1.57.0 tagged on 27 October 2026, after v1.56.0 on 22 October (30). 13 releases in the 90 days from 3 August, 1.46.0 (11 August) to 1.57.0, about one a week, plus GDK alpha tags (20). Issues move through a public board with Inbox and Ready columns and some new reports get a label within a day, but many of the week's reports had no reply on 1 October, and pull requests that don't implement a Ready issue are closed, per the 1 October check, not re-read since (15). Desktop, CLI, npm and GHCR builds ship from the same tag, and Python and Java SDK builds run in CI (13). cargo-deny, cargo-machete, Dependabot and Scorecard workflows, every GitHub Action pinned to a commit SHA since 29 September, and jsonwebtoken removed on 26 October to stop ignoring its cargo-deny advisories, with the current CI state unconfirmed (8).
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.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | goose | Paseo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 77 | 50 | goose +27 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 81 | 65 | goose +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 82 | 70 | goose +12 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 77 | 58 | goose +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 86 | 75 | goose +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 67 | 68 | Paseo +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| Total | BB 71.3/100 | B 62.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | goose | Paseo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Agentic AI Foundation (originally Block) | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Popularity | 55k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |
How the scores have moved
Paseo
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
goose
Telemetry off until the user opts in, with the collected fields listed. Autonomous mode, which approves every tool call, is the default.
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
goose
- Set
GOOSE_MODE=smart_approveorapprovebefore a run. The default approves everything, and the first-run prompt preselects Auto - Pass
--max-turnswith a real limit. The default is 1000 - Set
SECURITY_PROMPT_ENABLED=truewhen the task reads web pages or untrusted repositories - Use
--output-format jsonand--no-sessionin CI, and check the exit code - Pin the goose version in CI. Minor releases have removed functions, such as
delegate(..., async: true)in 1.55.0, without notice
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, goose or Paseo?
goose scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.
Are goose and Paseo open source?
Yes. goose is open source (Apache-2.0). Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with goose or Paseo
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- Claude Code vs goose
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- Cline vs goose
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- Conductor vs goose
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- Cursor CLI vs goose
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- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs goose
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- dsh-superagent (DeepSeek) vs goose
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- Devin vs goose
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- Droid CLI vs goose
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- Pi vs goose
- Pi vs Paseo
- Emdash vs goose
- Emdash vs Paseo
- Gemini CLI vs goose
- Gemini CLI vs Paseo
- GitHub Copilot CLI vs goose
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- goose vs Harness²
- goose vs HarnessRouter
- goose vs Jules
- goose vs Junie CLI
- goose vs Kilo Code CLI
- goose vs Kimi Code CLI
- goose vs Kiro CLI
- goose vs Letta
- goose vs mini-swe-agent
- goose vs MiniMax Code
- goose vs Mistral Vibe CLI
- goose vs Muse Code
- goose vs OpenAI Agents API
- goose vs OpenAI Codex
- goose vs OpenCode
- goose vs OpenHands
- goose vs OpenMausBot
- goose vs Orca
- goose vs Prime Agent
- goose vs Qoder CLI
- goose vs Qwen Code
- goose vs Mirror CLI
- goose vs Rovo Dev CLI
- goose vs Sculptor
- goose vs T3 Code
- goose vs Traycer
- goose vs Unstoppable
- goose vs Verdent
- goose vs Vibe-Trading
- goose vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
- 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 goose
- Clawboo vs Paseo
- CLI Manager vs goose
- CLI Manager vs Paseo
- goose vs Harness
- goose vs Paperclip
- goose vs Parallax
- Harness vs Paseo
- OpenMausBot vs Paseo
- Paperclip vs Paseo
- Parallax vs Paseo
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/goose-vs-paseo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/goose.json·/api/v1/tools/paseo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare goose paseo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "goose", "b": "paseo"}at/mcp, no key