Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run
Paseo vs Prime Agent
Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Prime Agent's 56.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Prime Agent leads on reliability. Both do agent harnesses.
Best agent harnesses and coding agents · All 1500 harnesses comparisons
Which one, for what
Paseo B
Best for Developers who want parallel coding agents on their own machines with no telemetry, reachable from anywhere.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 65 against 45
- Security & auth, 58 against 50
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Prime Agent loses 3 points for them
Watch for
Pre-1.0, at 0.15.3
Best for Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 58 against 50
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox
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 +20
Paseo 65
Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).
Prime Agent 45
Harness reading of the framework line. --mode json emits a session event stream and rpc and acp modes exist, but we found no published schema or reference for them outside the source (10). docs.primeintellect.ai serves an llms.txt that still had no Prime Agent page on 3 November 2026 (0). The README states what the agent does, how it differs and that it is not a sandbox, and the bundled skills say when to use each function (10). CLI values are validated with messages that list the valid choices, and MCP tool schemas are read live from the server (7). The README gives the install line and the main commands, the repository's docs folder adds Slack and Google Workspace MCP connector guides, and the MCP skill documents its error types, but there is no headless or configuration guide (5). Versioned stable releases and, since 0.10.1 on 21 October 2026, a dated CHANGELOG.md in the repository. 0.10.0 has no entry and the nightly betas have none of substance (13). 10 + 0 + 10 + 7 + 5 + 13 = 45.
Reliability Prime Agent +8
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.
Prime Agent 58
Read with the local-software lines. The installer's stable channel now points at v0.10.2 (28 October 2026), the Rust build, with checksummed binaries for macOS and Linux on x64 and arm64 and for Windows x64, read from the channel manifest on 3 November 2026 (20). A public CI workflow runs fmt, clippy with warnings as errors, sharded workspace tests and cargo-deny on main. Its badge read passing on 8 October, but GitHub's pages answered 403 on 3 November, so the current pass state is unread (15). 20 open issues and 91 open pull requests on 8 October, with Discussions bug reports of session-worker crashes, truncated RPC output and provider hangs whose reply state we did not read, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 3 November (15). A dated CHANGELOG.md now covers 0.10.1 (21 October) and 0.10.2 (28 October), and 0.10.1 records the removal of the --tools flags, but no entry is marked breaking, 0.10.0 (9 October) has no entry and the project is at 0.x (8). Version 0.10.2, pre-1.0 (0). 20 + 15 + 15 + 8 + 0 = 58.
Security & auth Paseo +8
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.
Prime Agent 50
Harness reading of the framework checklist, as used 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. Usage telemetry is on by default. It is pseudonymous, limited to primitive values with no prompts, tool content or file paths per the source, disclosed on first run and mirrored to a local telemetry.jsonl (18). No approval prompts were found and there is no sandbox, which the README states. MCP tools can be limited with enabledTools and disabledTools, and the agent is told to recommend a connection, not make one (4). The README tells users to work only with trusted repositories, instructions and skills. No detection or mitigation found (5). Append-only JSONL session files, a prime-agent incident timeline command and the local telemetry mirror (12). The vendor's security policy has a reporting address, safe harbour, response times and discretionary rewards, scoped to its website and API. The repository has no SECURITY.md and no published advisories, CONTRIBUTING.md says to report privately without naming an address, and security.txt returned 404. security.txt still returned 404 on 3 November 2026 and the policy page (updated 6 May 2026) is unchanged. Fixes to the agent's own flaws ship in releases with no advisory (see negative). cargo-deny runs in CI (11). 18 + 4 + 5 + 12 + 11 = 50.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Paseo | Prime Agent | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 50 | 58 | Prime Agent +8 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 65 | 45 | Paseo +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 70 | 73 | Prime Agent +3 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 58 | 50 | Paseo +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 75 | 79 | Prime Agent +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 68 | 67 | Paseo +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | B 62.1/100 | C 56.8/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Paseo | Prime Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Mohamed Boudra | Prime Intellect |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-07 | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 22k stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |
How the scores have moved
Verdicts
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.
Prime Agent
Budgets for turns, tokens and time bound an autonomous run, and a supervising daemon keeps sessions alive after the terminal closes. Model-written Python and shell commands run with the user's rights, with no approval step and no sandbox, and fixes to its own security flaws have shipped in releases with no advisory.
Before you call either
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
Prime Agent
- Run it in a disposable clone, container or VM. It executes model-written Python and shell commands with the user's rights and asks nothing first
- Set
PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0orDO_NOT_TRACK=1before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine - For unattended runs pass
--autonomous-max-turns,--autonomous-max-tokensand--autonomous-timeout-ms. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded - Headless use is
-pwith--mode jsonper the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because/loginis interactive - The
-t/--tools,-nt/--no-toolsand-nbt/--no-builtin-toolsflags were removed and now fail as unknown options
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Paseo or Prime Agent?
Paseo scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against Prime Agent's 56.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Prime Agent leads on reliability.
Are Paseo and Prime Agent open source?
Yes. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/paseo-vs-prime-agent.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/paseo.json·/api/v1/tools/prime-agent.json - From a terminal
anchor compare paseo prime-agent(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "paseo", "b": "prime-agent"}at/mcp, no key