# Devin vs Paperclip

> Paperclip scores 59 (C) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth. Both do agent multi agent. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-paperclip
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-paperclip.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-paperclip.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/devin-vs-paperclip.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: 2026-10-08

Paperclip scores 59 (C) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth. Both do agent multi agent.

- Devin: grade C, 55.7/100, rank #447 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/devin.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/devin.json
- Paperclip: grade C, 59/100, rank #390 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/paperclip.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/paperclip.json

## Which one, for what

### Devin (C)

Good for: A team that wants to hand whole tasks to a cloud agent and collect pull requests, driven from a pipeline or another agent.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 72 against 64

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Paperclip loses 10 points for them

Watch for: www.devinstatus.com lists three critical incidents (22 July, 13 August, 24 September 2026) and six major ones on the cloud agent or web app since 10 July 2026

### Paperclip (C)

Good for: Someone running several coding or operations agents who wants one place for tasks, budgets, approvals and history across harnesses.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 66 against 30
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 62
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: `claude_local` defaults `dangerouslySkipPermissions` to true and `codex_local` defaults to bypassing approvals and the sandbox, with agents running on the host


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Devin | Paperclip | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 30 | 66 | Paperclip +36 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 81 | Paperclip +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 70 | Paperclip +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 72 | 64 | Devin +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | Paperclip +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 78 | Paperclip +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 65 | Devin +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -10 | |
| **Total** | | **55.7 · C** | **59 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Devin | Paperclip |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Cognition AI, Inc. | Paperclip Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.devin.ai/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Cognition's Platform Terms of Service | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 13 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-30 | 2026-07-23 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-03-09 | 2026-07-23 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | 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 | yes |
| Popularity | none | 99k stars, 60k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Devin.** The v3 API is well specified, with a public OpenAPI 3.1 file covering 239 operations, problem+json errors, cursor pagination and service-user keys tied to roles. The status page records three critical and several major incidents on the cloud agent between 22 July and 24 September 2026, and no rate limit figures or retry guidance were found in the reviewed documentation.

**Paperclip.** Board approvals, budgets with a hard stop and an activity log sit above whichever harnesses do the work, and eleven stable versions shipped in 90 days. The Claude Code and Codex adapters skip permission prompts and the sandbox by default, and twelve security advisories, five of them critical, have been published since April 2026.

## Before you call either

### Devin

1. Use a `cog_` service-user key with the Member role. Legacy `apk_` keys fail against v3 and the MCP server with 401 or 403
2. Set `max_acu_limit` on every session you create. Usage is metered by the work done and has no published unit rate
3. Session creation is not idempotent in v3. After a timeout, list sessions by tag before creating again
4. Enterprise keys and personal access tokens must send `X-Org-Id` to the MCP server. Organisation-scoped keys resolve it automatically
5. Create scheduled work as an automation. POST to the schedules endpoint returns 403 for migrated organisations since 24 September 2026

### Paperclip

1. Set `PAPERCLIP_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before the first start. Telemetry is on by default
2. Set `dangerouslySkipPermissions` and `dangerouslyBypassApprovalsAndSandbox` to false on agents that read untrusted input, or run them in a sandbox provider
3. Install with Node.js 24.11 or newer, and install and sign in to each harness CLI on the host first. Paperclip assumes they are there
4. Use `--bind lan` or `--bind tailnet` at onboarding for anything beyond one machine. The default `local_trusted` mode treats every request as the board admin
5. Treat 409 on task checkout as owned by another agent and pick different work. The API docs say not to retry

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Devin or Paperclip?

Paperclip scores 59 (C) on agent readiness against Devin's 55.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Devin leads on security & auth.

### Are Devin and Paperclip open source?

No open-source release is listed for Devin. Paperclip is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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