head to head · open source
pi vs Paperclip
pi has 119,586 GitHub stars, 15,353 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Paperclip has 110,292 stars, 18,270 forks, 5,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pi leads on adoption by 8% (119,586 vs 110,292 stars). pi is written in TypeScript under MIT; Paperclip is written in TypeScript under MIT. pi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Paperclip 17%. 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
| pi | Paperclip | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 110K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 18K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 120K 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 pi
New issues and PRs from new contributors are auto closed by default. Maintainers review auto closed issues daily. See CONTRIBUTING.md. Pi Agent Harness This is the home of the Pi agent harness project including our self extensible coding agent. @earendil works/pi coding agent : Interactive coding agent CLI @earendil works/pi agent core : Agent runtime with tool calling and state management @earendil works/pi ai : Unified multi provider LLM API (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, …) To learn more about Pi: Visit pi.dev, the project website with demos Read the documentation, but you can also ask the agent to explain…
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or Paperclip more popular?
pi has 119,586 GitHub stars and Paperclip has 110,292. pi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pi and Paperclip free?
Both are open source. pi is licensed under MIT and Paperclip under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pi and Paperclip?
pi 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, pi or Paperclip?
Choose pi if you want the larger community (119,586 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Paperclip if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.