Paperclip vs Symphony
Paperclip (Paperclip) and Symphony (OpenAI) side by side on public data, as of Oct 21, 2026.
Paperclip has 3.8x the GitHub stars of Symphony (105K against 27.8K). Paperclip shipped 10 stable releases in the past 90 days. Symphony shipped 2 stable releases in the past 90 days.
Which should you choose?
Choose Paperclip if
- you want to use your own model API key
- you want to switch between model providers (4 documented against 1)
- you work in the terminal
- you want the one gaining users faster (downloads up 100% in 30 days)
- you want frequent updates (10 stable releases in 90 days against 2)
Choose Symphony if
- you prefer the more widely used tool, with more docs and answers around (Gid Score 76 against 58)
Built from documented features, official prices, status pages and usage data on this page; it does not judge output quality.
Side-by-side numbers
| Metric | Paperclip | Symphony |
|---|---|---|
| Gid Score | 58 | 76 |
| Usage data as of | Oct 21 | Oct 21 |
| Rank by Gid Score | #23 | #5 |
| Downloads, last 7 days | 41.1K | — |
| Downloads, 7-day change | down 13.0% | — |
| Downloads, 30-day change | up 100.4% | — |
| VS Code installs | — | — |
| Marketplace rating | — | — |
| GitHub stars | 105K | 27.8K |
| Homebrew installs, 30 days | — | — |
| Hacker News mentions, 30 days | 104 | 163 |
| Latest stable release | 2026.1012.0 · 9d ago | 0.0.3 · 36d ago |
| Stable releases, 90 days | 10 | 2 |
| Terminal-Bench (best run) | — | — |
| Price | Free (OSS) | Free (OSS) |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| First released | March 2026 | February 2026 |
| Interfaces | Web app, CLI, Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Models |
Trends
Paperclip
Open-source Node.js server and React app for running a team of AI agents toward a business goal. You define the goal, give agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode or OpenClaw roles in an org chart, set a budget per agent and approve the plan, then follow tasks, costs and an append-only audit log from one dashboard. A hosted Paperclip Cloud is on a waitlist.
Pricing: Free and open source (MIT), self-hosted. Paperclip Cloud has a waitlist and no public price.
Latest release 2026.1012.0:
- Workspace restore locks change protocol; stop every old process before upgrading. Restore and agent-file collection locks are now OS-backed SQLite file locks under <instance…
- Stored tool grants are enforced as written. A grant whose scope.allow list does not match a tool, connection, or application no longer falls through to a broader policy; grants with unknown…
- Assistants join your team over MCP — A new "Assistant Connection (MCP)" card in Connections lets Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and generic MCP clients connect to Paperclip through browser OAuth or…
- Chat leads the way — With Agent Chat enabled in the streamlined UI (the default shell), Chat is the first row in the Work navigation, the chat rail lists every eligible agent, and the side panel…
Symphony
Symphony is a specification and experimental Elixir reference implementation from OpenAI that watches an issue tracker such as Linear and spawns Codex agents to implement tasks, returning CI status, PR reviews and walkthroughs for human review.
Pricing: Free and open source (Apache-2.0).
Latest release 0.0.3:
- Add Symphony release skill
- Scrub GitHub and GitLab authentication token aliases
- Use Bearer authentication for GitLab API requests
- chore: release Symphony 0.0.3
Paperclip vs Symphony: common questions
Which is more popular, Paperclip or Symphony?
Symphony has a Gid Score of 76 against 58 for Paperclip. The score combines package downloads, editor installs, GitHub activity and attention, updated daily.
Do Paperclip and Symphony support MCP servers?
Paperclip documents support for MCP servers; Symphony's documentation does not.