Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
OpenAI Agents API vs Paseo
OpenAI Agents API scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Paseo leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Teams that want OpenAI to run the agent loop, with sandboxes, MCP tools and subagents, and are fine with a beta API, US-only data residency and no Zero Data Retention.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 60 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 70
- Security & auth, 87 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 75
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 68
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
Watch for
Public beta since 10 September 2026 behind the agents=v1 beta header, with no GA date
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 30
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
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 +30
OpenAI Agents API 30
No machine payment protocol (0). Model, tool and container prices published without a login, and no fee for the API itself (20). The Free tier reading of the openai-api listing, half (10). Sign-up in a browser (0). 0 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 30.
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.
Security & auth OpenAI Agents API +29
OpenAI Agents API 87
Project keys with restricted per-endpoint permissions, service accounts and workload identity, per the openai-api listing; we didn't confirm a key can be limited to /v1/agents (27 of 30). Automatic review for approvals, a sandbox network restricted to a host allowlist, vaults for secrets and a sandbox security guide (17 of 20). The agent reads web pages, MCP results and browser content; the sandbox security guide and approval flow are the mitigations, with no prompt-injection guide of its own found (8 of 15). Tracing, observability and usage per session and admin audit logs (15). SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 family, Bugcrowd bounty and a disclosure policy, per the openai-api listing (20). Not ZDR-eligible and US residency only, recorded under transparency. 27 + 17 + 8 + 15 + 20 = 87.
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 OpenAI Agents API +23
OpenAI Agents API 88
The reference is linked from the overview and the SDKs carry beta.agents types; we didn't confirm /agents/sessions in OpenAI's public OpenAPI file, so 15 of 25. llms.txt with every Agents API page and Markdown twins (10). The overview, architecture page and the agents guide that compares the Agents API, Agents SDK and Responses API say when to use it (20). Typed configuration with enumerated container sizes, network modes and environment types (13 of 15). Examples in six languages and an errors page with codes per HTTP status, turn and session (15). Dated changelog entries and a versioned beta header (15). 15 + 10 + 20 + 13 + 15 + 15 = 88.
Paseo 65
Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).
Transparency & trust OpenAI Agents API +17
OpenAI Agents API 85
Closed service with clear terms, Apache-2.0 SDKs (15). Session state retained until deleted, deletable sessions and artifacts, not ZDR-eligible, US residency only, and the data-controls guide agrees; no retention period for artifacts after a sandbox expires (25 of 30). Dated deprecation notices with minimum periods for GA models; a beta API can change faster (15 of 20). Subprocessors and processing countries listed, per the openai-api listing (20). 15 + 25 + 15 + 20 = 75.
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 OpenAI Agents API +12
OpenAI Agents API 87
Closed API. Last dated change 16 October 2026, Ultrafast mode and document skills (30). Four dated changelog entries in the 57 days since release, 10 September, 29 September, 9 October and 16 October (20). Changelog and help centre, as the openai-api listing reads them (12 of 15). Official SDKs carry beta.agents (15). SDK CI, per the openai-api listing (10). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 10 = 87.
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.
Reliability OpenAI Agents API +10
OpenAI Agents API 60
Read as a hosted API. status.openai.com has an Agents component under APIs (20). Since release on 10 September (57 days, not 90), the feed names the Agents API in a degraded-performance incident on 14 September, the elevated errors across ChatGPT, Codex and the API on 29 September (the openai-api listing reads that one as a major, 17:52 to 23:14 UTC), computer use issues and degraded workspace agents on 6 and 7 October, degraded performance across the APIs for 22 minutes on 21 October, and overbilling for hosted containers on 19 September. One major, the rest minor (10). Rate limits come from the shared guide, published per tier and model with headers, and the errors page adds a Files API allowance on session creation (15). 429 and 503 guidance with Retry-After, capped backoff and a check-then-retry procedure for turns (15). The Scale Tier SLA in the openai-api listing isn't shown to cover a beta API (0). Public beta behind the agents=v1 header (0). 20 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 = 60.
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.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | OpenAI Agents API | Paseo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 60 | 50 | OpenAI Agents API +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 88 | 65 | OpenAI Agents API +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 70 | OpenAI Agents API +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 87 | 58 | OpenAI Agents API +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 60 | Paseo +30 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 87 | 75 | OpenAI Agents API +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 85 | 68 | OpenAI Agents API +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | BB 73.3/100 | B 62.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | OpenAI Agents API | Paseo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent harness |
| Vendor | OpenAI | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessions | no (local only) |
| Transports | https | |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted API under OpenAI's Services Agreement. The SDKs are Apache 2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not read yet |
Verdicts
OpenAI Agents API
OpenAI's hosted agent runtime, the Codex harness behind one session call, with MCP, functions, web search, computer use, subagents and sandboxes on OpenAI or your own infrastructure. Documentation, errors and SDKs are thorough. It's still public beta, can't use Zero Data Retention and keeps data in the United States only.
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
OpenAI Agents API
- POST https://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessions with a project key and the header OpenAI-Beta: agents=v1, or use client.beta.agents in the SDKs
- Before retrying, retrieve the session and turn and check which actions completed, since there's no idempotency key
- Set the sandbox network to restricted with an allowlist of up to 100 hosts when the agent doesn't need the open web
- Save files from /workspace/outputs before deleting a session; no retention period is stated for artifacts
- Don't send data that needs Zero Data Retention or non-US residency; the Agents API supports neither
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, OpenAI Agents API or Paseo?
OpenAI Agents API scores 73.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Paseo leads on payments & pricing.
Can an agent call OpenAI Agents API and Paseo without installing anything?
OpenAI Agents API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openai.com/v1/agents/sessions. No hosted endpoint is listed for Paseo.
Are OpenAI Agents API and Paseo open source?
No open-source release is listed for OpenAI Agents API. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/openai-agents-api-vs-paseo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/openai-agents-api.json·/api/v1/tools/paseo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare openai-agents-api paseo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "openai-agents-api", "b": "paseo"}at/mcp, no key