Head to head · Agent harnesses · October 2026 research run

Paseo vs Qwen Code

Qwen Code scores 68.7 (B) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Paseo leads on security & auth. 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

  • Security & auth, 58 against 53

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • No incidents deducted, where Qwen Code loses 4 points for them

Watch for

Pre-1.0, at 0.15.3

Qwen Code B

Best for Developers and CI jobs that want an open-source harness tied to no single model vendor, with run budgets and SDKs.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 69 against 50
  • Schema & documentation, 91 against 65
  • Agent ergonomics, 85 against 70
  • Maintenance & community, 88 against 75

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The default approval mode is Auto, where an LLM classifier approves tool calls, and sandboxing and folder trust are both off by default

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 Qwen Code +26

Paseo 65

Harness reading. Public docs, a CLI and plugin examples in the repository (65).

Qwen Code 91

Framework reading. A settings.schema.json in the repository, a settings reference with the type and default of each key, and an OpenAPI file for the daemon's REST API (25). llms.txt on the docs site lists the pages with a line each, though it links to HTML and the Markdown path we tried returned 404 (8). The approval-mode page says when to use each mode and the sandbox page what each method and Seatbelt profile allows (15). Approval modes, sandbox backends, filesystem and network policies are enums (13). The headless page documents json and stream-json output, and exit codes 41, 42, 44, 52, 53, 55 and 130 are documented (15). A dated changelog generated from releases (15).

Reliability Qwen Code +19

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.

Qwen Code 69

Local-package reading. npm with engines node 22 or newer (re-read in package.json at 0.26.5), Homebrew at 0.26.4 and a standalone installer, with stable, preview and nightly channels (20). Public CI, and of the 15 most recent completed CI runs on main on 8 October, 12 passed, 3 were cancelled and none failed, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (22). 1,402 open issues and 334 open pull requests per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November; the triage and follow-up bots still run in the workflows (15). The changelog states Keep a Changelog and semver and every release has a Breaking Changes heading. Breaking changes shipped in patch releases 0.23.4 and 0.24.1, and again in 0.26.1 (24 October, QQ bot session isolation) and 0.26.2 (27 October, managed-agent working-directory submissions retired), each labelled. All are 0.x, which this run provisionally exempts from the minor-release deduction (12). 0.26.5, pre-1.0 (0). 20 + 22 + 15 + 12 + 0 = 69.

Agent ergonomics Qwen Code +15

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).

Qwen Code 85

Framework reading, adapted to a harness driven by a pipeline. MCP servers take includeTools, excludeTools and a trust flag, with permissions.allow, ask and deny rules and --exclude-tools (20). Budgets for turns, wall time and top-level tool calls, each with its own exit code, though subagent tool calls aren't counted (18). Documented exit codes (18). --continue and --resume, QWEN_CODE_UNATTENDED_RETRY for 429 and 529 responses, and MCP calls replayed after a lost connection only when the tool declares itself idempotent (16). A TypeScript SDK on npm at 0.1.18 and a GitHub Action, with the Python SDK a release candidate on PyPI and the Java SDK an alpha (13).

Maintenance & community Qwen Code +13

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.

Qwen Code 88

0.26.5 on 1 November 2026 (30). 39 stable releases from 3 August to 1 November (v0.21.4 to v0.26.5), plus previews and nightlies (20). Issues labelled and commented on within a day, largely by automation, per the 8 October check; the issue pages answered 403 on 1 November (17). The TypeScript SDK reached 0.1.26 on 29 October, while the Python SDK's newest tag is still sdk-python-v0.1.0-preview.0 (9 May 2026) and the Java SDK is an alpha (11). CI, CodeQL, a monthly scorecard and Dependabot (10). 30 + 20 + 17 + 11 + 10 = 88.

Security & auth Paseo +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.

Qwen Code 53

Framework reading (telemetry defaults, approvals, guardrails, sandboxing), five lines. Usage statistics are on by default (privacy.usageStatisticsEnabled defaults to true in the settings schema at 0.26.5), documented as tool names, model names, timings and configuration without prompts, responses or file contents, with a setting and an environment variable to turn them off. Credentials are API keys in environment variables or settings.json (15). Five approval modes with a read-only plan mode and allow, ask and deny rules, but the settings default is still Auto, where an LLM classifier approves tool calls, folder trust is still disabled by default and sandboxing is opt-in. Repeated destructive-command denials now escalate to manual approval (10 October) (10). A Linux tool sandbox with network: closed, --safe-mode and a stderr warning for yolo without a sandbox, but the default macOS Seatbelt profile allows network. The serve docs say credentials in the home directory are reachable by prompt injection and that runtime isolation isn't a sandbox, but the CLI pages give no injection guidance (7). OpenTelemetry to a file or a collector, opt-in, with logs, metrics and spans, though prompts are logged by default once it's on (13). SECURITY.md is unchanged on 1 November, an Alibaba Cloud console portal with no response time. Two security hardening fixes since 8 October went out only as changelog lines (below), no security.txt was found, and CodeQL and a monthly scorecard run in CI. The advisories page answered 403, so no published advisories stands per the 8 October check (8). 15 + 10 + 7 + 13 + 8 = 53.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runPaseoQwen CodeEdge
Reliability16%205069Qwen Code +19
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26591Qwen Code +26
Agent ergonomics13%16.27085Qwen Code +15
Security & auth14%17.55853Paseo +5
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87588Qwen Code +13
Transparency & trust7%8.86866Paseo +2
Negative events≤150-4
TotalB 62.1/100B 68.7/100

Facts side by side

FactPaseoQwen Code
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorMohamed BoudraAlibaba (Qwen team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-11-072026-11-01
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-10-01
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetnot found in the text
Popularitynone28k stars, 105k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone2.8/5 (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.

Qwen Code

Apache-2.0 with no account of its own, any OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini-compatible endpoint, and headless runs bounded by turn, tool-call and wall-time budgets with distinct exit codes. Out of the box, Auto mode lets an LLM classifier approve tool calls, with the sandbox and folder trust both off. Security fixes ship as changelog lines without advisories.

Before you call either

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

Qwen Code

  1. Pass --approval-mode on every run. The settings default is auto, and one docs page says headless runs default to asking, so don't rely on either
  2. Add --max-session-turns, --max-wall-time and --max-tool-calls. All three are unlimited by default. Exit 53 is the turn limit and 55 a budget
  3. --yolo doesn't turn on a sandbox. Add --sandbox, or on Linux set tools.executionSandbox with network set to closed
  4. Set QWEN_USAGE_STATISTICS_ENABLED=false to stop usage statistics
  5. Run 0.26.2 or later before using qwen serve in a cloned repository. Earlier versions let the repository's .env set the daemon token

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Paseo or Qwen Code?

Qwen Code scores 68.7 (B) on agent readiness against Paseo's 62.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Paseo leads on security & auth.

Are Paseo and Qwen Code open source?

Yes. Paseo is open source (Apache-2.0). Qwen Code is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Paseo or Qwen Code

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.