head to head · open source
Paperclip vs Tabby
Paperclip has 80,932 GitHub stars, 14,855 forks, 5,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tabby has 33,884 stars, 1,788 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Paperclip leads on adoption by 139% (80,932 vs 33,884 stars). Paperclip is written in TypeScript under MIT; Tabby is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Paperclip has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, Tabby 5%. 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 | Tabby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 34K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-06-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 Tabby if
- You want the Tabby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Tabby 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 Tabby
Tabby is a self hosted, open source AI coding assistant that acts as an on premises alternative to GitHub Copilot, aimed at developers and engineering teams that want code completion and chat without routing source code through a third party cloud service.
read the full Tabby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Paperclip or Tabby more popular?
Paperclip has 80,932 GitHub stars and Tabby has 33,884. Paperclip has the larger community by that measure.
Are Paperclip and Tabby free?
Both are open source. Paperclip is licensed under MIT, and Tabby has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Paperclip and Tabby?
Paperclip is written in TypeScript and Tabby in Rust. 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 Tabby?
Choose Paperclip if you want the larger community (80,932 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tabby if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.