# ClickUp vs OpenProject

> ClickUp scores 60.9 (C) on agent readiness against OpenProject's 57.4 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. OpenProject leads on agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do tasks create. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-openproject
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-openproject.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-openproject.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-openproject.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

ClickUp scores 60.9 (C) on agent readiness against OpenProject's 57.4 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. OpenProject leads on agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do tasks create.

- ClickUp: grade C, 60.9/100, rank #442 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clickup.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clickup.json
- OpenProject: grade C, 57.4/100, rank #550 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openproject.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openproject.json

## Which one, for what

### ClickUp (C)

Good for: Teams already working in ClickUp that want an assistant to create and update tasks, comment, log time and read Docs through one OAuth connection.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 74 against 52
- Security & auth, 64 against 59

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where OpenProject loses 5 points for them

Watch for: MCP calls are capped per rolling 24 hours without the Everything AI add-on, 100 on Free Forever and 300 on Unlimited, per Workspace and client

### OpenProject (C)

Good for: Teams that want a self-hostable or EU-hosted project tool with Gantt, time tracking and budgets, and an agent working through a documented REST API.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 54
- Transparency & trust, 87 against 75

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: 83 advisories published against opf/openproject in the twelve months to 8 October 2026, 13 rated critical, among them remote code execution and SQL injection


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ClickUp | OpenProject | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 74 | 52 | ClickUp +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 76 | OpenProject +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 48 | 70 | OpenProject +22 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 59 | ClickUp +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 75 | OpenProject +21 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 87 | OpenProject +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **60.9 · C** | **57.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ClickUp | OpenProject |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mango Technologies, Inc. DBA ClickUp | OpenProject GmbH |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.clickup.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under ClickUp's Terms of Service and Developer Terms. The clickup-plugin repository on GitHub is MIT | GPL-3.0 for the OpenProject source. Enterprise add-ons need a paid token, and OpenProject Enterprise cloud runs under OpenProject's Terms of Service |
| Tools exposed | 48 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-18 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-06-27 | 2026-08-06 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-06-02 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 16k stars |

## Verdicts

**ClickUp.** The hosted MCP server uses OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, dynamic client registration and read and write scopes, and works on the Free Forever plan. Without the Everything AI add-on, MCP calls are capped at 100 to 25,000 per rolling 24 hours by plan. No API changelog, deprecation policy, official SDK or SLA was found.

**OpenProject.** OpenProject's APIv3 has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document with 320 operations, stable error identifiers and optimistic locking, and the same API ships in the free GPL-3.0 Community edition. No request limits are published, API tokens carry their user's full permissions, and 83 security advisories were published in the last twelve months, 13 rated critical.

## Before you call either

### ClickUp

1. Connect to https://mcp.clickup.com/mcp with OAuth 2.1 and PKCE. API keys and REST OAuth tokens are refused on the MCP server
2. Pass `workspace_id` on every MCP call when the user belongs to more than one Workspace, as ClickUp's own skills instruct
3. Budget MCP calls. Each tool call counts against the rolling 24-hour cap, and `RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` returns `retryAfter`
4. On the REST API read `X-RateLimit-Remaining` and `X-RateLimit-Reset`, and page Get Tasks with `page` at 100 tasks a page
5. Treat `team_id` in API v2 as the Workspace ID, and send dates as Unix milliseconds

### OpenProject

1. Send the API token as `Authorization: Bearer <token>`, or as the Basic auth password with the user name `apikey`
2. Read the resource first and send its current `lockVersion` with every PATCH. A stale value returns 409 `UpdateConflict`
3. POST to the `/form` endpoint of a work package to learn writable fields and allowed values before creating or updating
4. URL-encode `filters` as a JSON array, and add `pageSize`, `offset` and `select` to keep work package lists small
5. Run the agent as a dedicated user with a narrow project role, and treat work package text and comments as untrusted input

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, ClickUp or OpenProject?

ClickUp scores 60.9 (C) on agent readiness against OpenProject's 57.4 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. OpenProject leads on agent ergonomics, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do ClickUp and OpenProject need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call ClickUp and OpenProject without installing anything?

ClickUp has a hosted endpoint at https://api.clickup.com. No hosted endpoint is listed for OpenProject.

### Are ClickUp and OpenProject open source?

No open-source release is listed for ClickUp. OpenProject is open source (GPL-3.0 for the OpenProject source. Enterprise add-ons need a paid token, and OpenProject Enterprise cloud runs under OpenProject's Terms of Service).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-openproject.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-openproject.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "clickup", "b": "openproject"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare clickup openproject`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clickup.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openproject.json

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- [ClickUp vs Teamwork.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-teamwork.md)
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- [ClickUp vs Trello](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-trello.md)
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- [ClickUp vs YouTrack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clickup-vs-youtrack.md)
- [monday.com vs OpenProject](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/monday-vs-openproject.md)
- [OpenProject vs Plane](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-plane.md)
- [OpenProject vs Roma](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-roma.md)
- [OpenProject vs Shortcut](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-shortcut.md)
- [OpenProject vs Taiga](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-taiga.md)
- [OpenProject vs Teamwork.com](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-teamwork.md)
- [OpenProject vs Todoist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-todoist.md)
- [OpenProject vs Trello](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-trello.md)
- [OpenProject vs Wrike](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-wrike.md)
- [OpenProject vs YouTrack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openproject-vs-youtrack.md)