Comparisons · Checked November 11, 2026
Brigade vs Paperclip
Paperclip and Brigade share an idea: a company of agents, open source. Paperclip has you govern like a board (hires, budgets, pausing agents) on a server you run. Brigade is hosted or self-hosted, you can approve the actions themselves (the email before it goes, the change in Stripe), and your team works in the same threads.
What Paperclip is
Paperclip is an open-source (MIT), self-hosted platform that organizes AI agents such as Claude Code, Codex or OpenClaw into a company, with an org chart, goals, budgets, tickets and governance. You start it yourself (it runs with npx); a hosted version was on a waitlist when we checked.
Side by side
| Brigade | Paperclip | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An open-source app that gives your company a team of AI teammates, each one the official Claude Code or Codex with a job, its own computer, the Apps you give it and a shared memory. | An open-source framework that structures agents into a company, with an org chart, budgets and governance. |
| Agents it runs | The official Claude Code and Codex. | Bring your own: Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Cursor and others through adapters. |
| How you stay in control | For each teammate, you choose whether its writes to Apps (an email through Gmail, a change in Stripe, a merge on GitHub) go on their own or wait for your yes, and each mailbox can be set to approve every email. Every request lands in one Needs you list, also on your phone. Commands and files on its own computer don’t ask. | As a board: approve hires, set per-agent budgets, pause agents, read the audit log. |
| Where it runs | Free on your own computer (Mac or Linux). Brigade Cloud gives teammates a computer of their own that keeps working when yours is off. | Self-hosted; a hosted cloud was on a waitlist. |
| Apps | Built-in Apps (Gmail, GitHub, Stripe, Notion, Linear and more), any MCP server, and webhooks. | Through the agents you plug in. |
| Open source | Yes, MIT. You can read every line and host it yourself. | Yes, MIT. |
Pick Paperclip if
- You want to plug in many agent runtimes, not only Claude Code and Codex.
- You want to run it on your own server and manage agents by budget and org chart.
Pick Brigade if
- You want it ready to use: hosted, on your phone, with your team.
- You want to approve an email or a payment change before it happens, rather than set budgets.
- You want built-in Apps, a computer per teammate and memory without assembling them.
Where Brigade is weaker
- On the free plan, teammates work only while your computer is on. Brigade Cloud gives them one that stays on.
- Teammates run Claude Code or Codex; other harnesses and models are not supported yet.
- You talk to teammates in Brigade’s app and by email, not in WhatsApp or Telegram.
Try it
Click around the live demo (no sign-up), read the docs, or read the code on GitHub.
Sources
What this page says about Paperclip comes from these pages, checked on November 11, 2026. Products change: if something here is out of date, open an issue on GitHub.