head to head · open source
pi vs Paperclip
pi has 106,586 GitHub stars, 13,437 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Paperclip has 80,932 stars, 14,855 forks, 5,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pi leads on adoption by 32% (106,586 vs 80,932 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 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
| pi | Paperclip | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 107K | ★ 81K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 15K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 107K 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
Pi is a modular agent toolkit written in TypeScript for building and running terminal based AI coding agents. It lives in the developer tooling ecosystem and provides composable packages for LLM integration, agent orchestration, and terminal UI rendering. The project centers on @earendil works/pi coding agent , an interactive CLI agent, supported by core runtime, AI abstraction, and TUI libraries.
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 pi or Paperclip more popular?
pi has 106,586 GitHub stars and Paperclip has 80,932. 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 (106,586 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Paperclip if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.