Head to head · Multi-agent orchestration · October 2026 research run
Parallax vs Paseo
Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Parallax's 38.1 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do multi-agent orchestration.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Parallax E
Best for A developer on a Mac who runs several coding agents across Claude and Codex subscriptions and wants cross-lab review of finished sessions on GitHub.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No API, MCP server or CLI reference for the app itself. Captain, subscription fallback and fast merge are described only on the product page
Paseo B
Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 50 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 29
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 42
- Security & auth, 58 against 43
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 56
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 50
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.
Schema & documentation Paseo +36
Parallax 29
The review API has no OpenAPI or endpoint reference. Endpoints appear only in curl examples, and the base URL $PARALLAX_URL is not published (0). conifer.build/llms.txt covers the gateway in detail and Parallax in two lines that point to the docs (5). The docs explain sessions, sweeps, evidence states, memory and retention at length, but nothing documents the app, Captain, fallback or fast merge (8). parallax.yml keys are listed with allowed values (deliver: proven-only, review: off, severity floors, sweep modes), but request and response shapes for the API are not (5). curl examples, sample sweep lines and a table of skip reasons with the fix for each (8). Paths sit under /v1, with no changelog for Parallax (3).
Paseo 65
Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).
Payments & pricing Paseo +30
Parallax 30
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Parallax episode credit prices are read from the account after sign-in. Gateway token prices are public at GET /v1/catalog with no key, which covers Conifer credit spent by agents (10). $50 of Conifer credit and 5 free episodes on GitHub sign-up, with no card mentioned, and agents can run on the owner's own Claude and Codex subscriptions (20). A person has to download the app, sign in and install the GitHub App, so no autonomous onboarding (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
Parallax 42
Scored on the review API and the hooks, the only parts an agent touches. The session-start brief is cut at 6,000 characters, memory per review call at 12,000, and lesson_cap sets 1 to 20 lessons per person (8). repo filters on recall and brief, brain=true on the ledger, no documented pagination (4). Skip reasons such as capture_commit_missing and test_configuration_missing each come with a fix, but HTTP error codes for the API are not documented (12). A session is swept once per capture mark, retries use no extra credit, and a fix PR is reused and never reopened or merged by Parallax (14). No SDK for Parallax, and capture of every repository is the default (4).
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 Paseo +19
Parallax 56
v1.0.2 on 16 October 2026 (30). Three releases, v1.0.0 to v1.0.2, on 15 and 16 October 2026 (20). Closed service. No public changelog. Support through a GitHub issues link, a Discord server and email, none of which we could check for replies (3). No Parallax SDK and nothing in the MCP registry. Conifer's SDK is for the gateway (0). Signed builds with checksums and a self-updater, with no CI to inspect (3).
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.
Transparency & trust Paseo +18
Parallax 50
Closed source under Conifer's terms, which name the company, a Delaware corporation, and Delaware law (15). The privacy policy and docs agree on 30-day session retention, consent by installing capture, the upload opt-out and deletion by request. The policy predates the app and names only Claude Code and Codex for capture, while the docs also name Cursor, Cline and Prime (18). No deprecation policy. Conifer dated the retirement of its earlier desktop download page (1 September 2026), but nothing for Parallax (3). Fly.io is named as the Parallax subprocessor with US processing. Whether the Parallax app sends telemetry is not stated, and the self-updater's off switch is documented in the README (12).
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.
Security & auth Paseo +15
Parallax 43
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. Once installed, capture uploads transcripts, tool calls with results and source snapshots from every repository on the machine unless a local allowlist is set first, and the app updates itself by default. Uploads stop with PARALLAX_STORE_UPLOAD=off and the token is revocable (8). Proofs run in a throwaway cloud copy, automatic PR review is off by default and Parallax never merges its own fix PR. What Captain may do to a running agent is not documented (10). Reviewers read untrusted transcripts and code with no documented mitigation. Lessons injected into the agent come only from verified outcomes and maintainer replies, never bots, and the brief labels everything else as cited fact (8). Recall receipts, per-injection records, sweep lines, the review ledger and GET /v1/calibration (12). No security.txt, bug bounty, SOC 2 or advisories. The privacy policy names a contact for security reports with a two-business-day reply and lists encryption and row-level security (5).
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 this run | Parallax | Paseo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 50 | Paseo +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 29 | 65 | Paseo +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 42 | 70 | Paseo +28 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 43 | 58 | Paseo +15 |
| 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 | 56 | 75 | Paseo +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 50 | 68 | Paseo +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| Total | E 38.1/100 | B 62.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Parallax | Paseo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Conifer Solutions, Inc. | Mohamed Boudra |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary, under Conifer's Terms of Service (Conifer Solutions, Inc.). The GitHub repository holds the README and release binaries, not the source | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 0 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-16 | 2026-11-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-22 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-22 | 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 | not found in the text | 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 |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Paseo
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Parallax
Parallax runs several coding agents in one app and reviews finished sessions in the cloud, labelling each finding by what a sandbox test established. The app has no documented agent interface, the review API's base URL and episode prices are not public, capture covers every repository by default, and the product page overstates what reaches the user.
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
Parallax
- Don't plan to drive the Parallax app. It has no documented agent interface. Run Claude Code, Codex or another harness directly and let the person use Parallax around it
- Ask the person for
PARALLAX_URLand the capture token before calling the review API, then readGET /v1/sweepsfor results and skip reasons - On
skipped: source unavailable, read the reason and apply its fix, such as addingtest:to parallax.yml or starting the session inside the repository - Ask the person to set the capture allowlist before starting sessions in repositories that must not leave the machine
- Treat a lesson in the session-start brief as a hint to check against the code, not as an instruction that overrides the person
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, Parallax or Paseo?
Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Parallax's 38.1 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Are Parallax and Paseo open source?
No open-source release is listed for Parallax. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with Parallax or Paseo
- Agent Zero vs Paseo
- Aider vs Paseo
- Amp vs Paseo
- Antigravity CLI vs Paseo
- Auggie CLI vs Paseo
- AXLR vs Paseo
- Claude Code vs Paseo
- Cline vs Paseo
- Conductor vs Paseo
- Crush vs Paseo
- Cursor CLI vs Paseo
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Paseo
- dsh-superagent (DeepSeek) vs Paseo
- Devin vs Paseo
- Droid CLI vs Paseo
- Pi vs Paseo
- Emdash vs Paseo
- Gemini CLI vs Paseo
- GitHub Copilot CLI vs Paseo
- goose vs Paseo
- 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)
- Amp vs Parallax
- Antigravity CLI vs Parallax
- Auggie CLI vs Parallax
- AXLR vs Parallax
- Claude Code vs Parallax
- Clawboo vs Parallax
- Clawboo vs Paseo
- CLI Manager vs Parallax
- CLI Manager vs Paseo
- Cline vs Parallax
- Conductor vs Parallax
- Crush vs Parallax
- DeepSeek Harness (dsh) vs Parallax
- dsh-superagent (DeepSeek) vs Parallax
- Devin vs Parallax
- Droid CLI vs Parallax
- Emdash vs Parallax
- Gemini CLI vs Parallax
- GitHub Copilot CLI vs Parallax
- goose vs Parallax
- Harness vs Parallax
- Harness vs Paseo
- HarnessRouter vs Parallax
- Jules vs Parallax
- Junie CLI vs Parallax
- Kilo Code CLI vs Parallax
- Kimi Code CLI vs Parallax
- Kiro CLI vs Parallax
- Letta vs Parallax
- MiniMax Code vs Parallax
- Mistral Vibe CLI vs Parallax
- Muse Code vs Parallax
- OpenCode vs Parallax
- OpenHands vs Parallax
- OpenMausBot vs Parallax
- OpenMausBot vs Paseo
- Orca vs Parallax
- Paperclip vs Parallax
- Paperclip vs Paseo
- Parallax vs Prime Agent
- Parallax vs Qoder CLI
- Parallax vs Qwen Code
- Parallax vs Mirror CLI
- Parallax vs Rovo Dev CLI
- Parallax vs Sculptor
- Parallax vs T3 Code
- Parallax vs Traycer
- Parallax vs Unstoppable
- Parallax vs Verdent
- Parallax vs Vibe-Trading
- Parallax vs Warp (Warp Agent CLI and the Oz Agent API)
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/parallax-agents-vs-paseo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/parallax-agents.json·/api/v1/tools/paseo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare parallax-agents paseo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "parallax-agents", "b": "paseo"}at/mcp, no key