head to head · open source
Paperclip vs crewAI
Paperclip has 81,090 GitHub stars, 14,904 forks, 5,464 open issues and last shipped today. crewAI has 58,791 stars, 8,514 forks, 353 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Paperclip leads on adoption by 38% (81,090 vs 58,791 stars). Paperclip is written in TypeScript under MIT; crewAI is written in Python under MIT. Paperclip has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, crewAI 14%. 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
| Paperclip | crewAI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 59K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 8.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Paperclip if
- You weight community size — 81K 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
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 →
About crewAI
CrewAI is an open source Python framework for orchestrating role playing, autonomous AI agents through collaborative Crews and event driven Flows, released under the MIT licence and built for developers and teams producing multi agent workflows in production.
read the full crewAI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Paperclip or crewAI more popular?
Paperclip has 81,090 GitHub stars and crewAI has 58,791. 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 (81,090 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose crewAI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.