head to head · open source
OpenHands vs Paperclip
OpenHands has 88,312 GitHub stars, 11,598 forks, 713 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Paperclip has 80,932 stars, 14,855 forks, 5,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenHands leads on adoption by 9% (88,312 vs 80,932 stars). OpenHands is written in TypeScript under MIT; Paperclip is written in TypeScript under MIT. OpenHands has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Paperclip 18%. Paperclip was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| OpenHands | Paperclip | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 88K | ★ 81K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 15K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenHands if
- You weight community size — 88K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Paperclip if
- You want the Paperclip feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Paperclip fits your workflow better
About OpenHands
OpenHands is an open source platform that provides a self hosted control center—Agent Canvas—for managing and orchestrating autonomous AI coding agents. It lives in the developer tools and AI assisted coding ecosystem, designed to turn local or remote agents into a persistent, automated engineering team. The platform supports multiple agent backends and integrates with third party services to enable scheduled or event driven automation workflows.
read the full OpenHands overview →
About Paperclip
Paperclip is an open source orchestration platform for managing teams of AI agents in production environments. It lives in the Node.js and React ecosystem and is licensed under MIT. The project addresses the operational chaos that arises when deploying multiple autonomous AI agents—such as OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor—across an organization. Without coordination, teams face untraceable workflows, runaway costs, misaligned goals, and poor governance. Paperclip solves this by providing a unified dashboard that enforces org structure, budget controls, goal alignment, and auditability across heterogeneous …
read the full Paperclip overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenHands or Paperclip more popular?
OpenHands has 88,312 GitHub stars and Paperclip has 80,932. OpenHands has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenHands and Paperclip free?
Both are open source. OpenHands is licensed under MIT and Paperclip under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenHands and Paperclip?
OpenHands is written in TypeScript and Paperclip in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenHands or Paperclip?
Choose OpenHands if you want the larger community (88,312 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Paperclip if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.