head to head · open source
Paperclip vs crewAI
Paperclip has 110,872 GitHub stars, 18,362 forks, 5,464 open issues and last shipped today. crewAI has 60,469 stars, 9,025 forks, 353 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Paperclip leads on adoption by 83% (110,872 vs 60,469 stars). Paperclip is written in TypeScript under MIT; crewAI is written in Python under MIT. Paperclip has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, crewAI 15%. Paperclip was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| Paperclip | crewAI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 111K | ★ 60K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 9.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Paperclip if
- You weight community size — 111K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick crewAI if
- You want the crewAI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and crewAI fits your workflow better
About Paperclip
Quickstart · Docs · GitHub · Discord · Twitter · Website Paperclip is the app people use to manage AI agents for work. Open source orchestration for teams of AI agents. If OpenClaw is an employee , Paperclip is the company . Paperclip is a Node.js server and React UI that orchestrates a team of AI agents to run a business. Bring your own agents, assign goals, and track work and costs from one dashboard. It looks like a task manager. Under the hood: org charts, budgets, governance, goal alignment, and agent coordination. Manage business goals, not pull requests. Works with…
read the full Paperclip overview →
About crewAI
Homepage · Open Source · Docs · Start Cloud Trial · Blog · Forum Fast and Flexible Multi Agent Automation Framework CrewAI is an open source Python framework with high level abstractions and low level APIs for building production ready multi agent workflows. It gives developers autonomous agent collaboration through Crews and precise, event driven control through Flows. CrewAI Crews : Optimize for autonomy and collaborative intelligence with role based AI agents. CrewAI Flows : Build event driven automations that combine precise workflow control, single LLM calls, and native support for Crews. With over 100,000…
read the full crewAI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Paperclip or crewAI more popular?
Paperclip has 110,872 GitHub stars and crewAI has 60,469. Paperclip has the larger community by that measure.
Are Paperclip and crewAI free?
Both are open source. Paperclip is licensed under MIT and crewAI under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Paperclip and crewAI?
Paperclip is written in TypeScript and crewAI in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Paperclip or crewAI?
Choose Paperclip if you want the larger community (110,872 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose crewAI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.