Head to head · Multi-agent orchestration · October 2026 research run

Letta vs Paperclip

Letta scores 59.7 (C) on agent readiness against Paperclip's 52.6 (D), and leads in 1 of 7 scored categories. Paperclip leads on schema & documentation, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do multi-agent orchestration.

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Which one, for what

Letta C

Best for Long-lived coding agents and assistants that keep memory and identity across sessions and machines.

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 78

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine
  • No incidents deducted, where Paperclip loses 15 points for them

Watch for

The default permission mode is unrestricted, the renamed bypassPermissions, so tool calls aren't confirmed unless the user picks another mode

Paperclip D

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

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 70
  • Security & auth, 64 against 35
  • Transparency & trust, 66 against 55

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

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

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Security & auth Paperclip +29

Letta 35

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Letta Cloud is the default backend, so agent state and conversations go to Letta's servers, and telemetry is on by default (10 of 30). The default permission mode is unrestricted; standard, acceptEdits and strict are opt-in, and cloud sandboxes exist for remote work (4 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found for fetched pages or channel messages (5 of 15). Conversation search and git history of memory give an operator a record of what the agent saw and changed (10 of 15). SECURITY.md routes reports to support@letta.com and scopes out the retired server; no security.txt, bounty or certification found (6 of 20). Total 35.

Paperclip 64

Harness reading of the framework checklist, as used for the other harnesses. 30 for what leaves the machine by default, 20 for approvals and sandboxing, 15 for prompt-injection posture, 15 for audit and 20 for the security programme. Anonymous usage telemetry is on by default and goes to telemetry.paperclip.ing. The README lists what is excluded and four opt-outs, and Sentry and OpenTelemetry stay off until configured. We found no first-run notice in the CLI source (18). Board approvals for hires and strategy, execution policies and per-action connection permissions, but claude_local defaults dangerouslySkipPermissions to true, codex_local defaults to bypassing approvals and the sandbox, local agents run on the host, sandbox providers are optional plugins and the default local_trusted mode has no login (10). A documented low_trust_review preset contains agents that read untrusted pull requests or tickets. It is opt-in (10). An activity log of mutating actions, run logs, cost events and audited board API keys (14). SECURITY.md with GitHub private reporting and twelve advisories published per the 8 October check, three now with CVEs in OSV. No security.txt, bug bounty or SOC 2 report found (12).

Schema & documentation Paperclip +11

Letta 70

Harness reading. docs.letta.com serves llms.txt and a Markdown version of every page, with an applies_to block saying which backend and interface each page covers (10). TypeScript types for the Agent SDK and a documented App Server WebSocket protocol, but no JSON Schema or OpenAPI for the harness (15 of 25). Pages say when to use local or cloud backends, subagents and channels (14 of 20). Permission modes and options are typed in the SDK (12 of 15). Example applications and a remote client reference (11 of 15). Releases most days but no changelog file (8 of 15). Total 70.

Paperclip 81

The running server publishes OpenAPI at /api/openapi.json and validates requests with Zod, and the MCP server's tools take Zod schemas. No copy of the spec is published on the docs site, and paperclip.ing/openapi.json describes only the website (22). llms.txt at paperclip.ing, and docs pages answer as Markdown at .md (10). An API reference page per resource and task guides, but the MCP tool descriptions are one line each, such as List agents in a company (13). Typed inputs throughout, apart from the paperclipApiRequest tool, which takes any path under /api and a JSON body (12). cURL, JavaScript and Python examples and a status-code table, with one {error} shape and an occasional details field (12). A changelog page for every stable release and release notes in the repository, but the API path carries no version (12).

Transparency & trust Paperclip +11

Letta 55

Apache-2.0 (30). The privacy policy has no date, no legal entity and no retention periods, and says hosted message data may train future models (8 of 30). The README and docs mark AgentFile, the Electron app and the V1 server as deprecated or retired, without dated notice periods (12 of 20). Telemetry is described in the privacy policy only as basic and opt-out when supported; the LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 switch appears only in the source (5 of 20). Total 55.

Paperclip 66

MIT (30). The privacy policy of 23 July 2026 separates self-hosted use from the hosted services and names Paperclip Labs, Inc., but keeps data as long as reasonably necessary, lists no subprocessors, and the 90-day telemetry retention appears only in source. The terms grant a broad licence over content sent to the services and allow model training on opt-in detailed telemetry (16). Release notes carry dated Breaking Changes sections and upgrade guides, with no written deprecation policy or notice period (10). The README discloses telemetry, what it excludes and four opt-outs, and the event contract is public in the repository, but it is on by default (17).

Maintenance & community Letta +7

Letta 85

v0.34.42 on 6 November 2026 (30). Dozens of releases in 90 days (20). Pull requests are merged daily; recent issues from users have few replies (15 of 25). npm and PyPI packages and the Agent SDK track the releases (12 of 15). Lock files, CI and nightly smoke tests (8 of 10). Total 85.

Paperclip 78

Version 2026.1023.0, released on 23 October 2026 per its notes and the site banner (30). Ten stable releases from 2026.817.0 (17 August) to 2026.1023.0 in the 90 days to 4 November (20). Per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November, 650 pull requests merged in the last 30 days, but 2,849 issues and 3,338 pull requests were open, 1,396 open issues had no comment, and 309 of the 472 still-open issues from the two weeks before had none (8). paperclipai and @paperclipai/mcp-server publish from the same release workflow. We did not check the MCP registry (12). CI on master, a lockfile refresh workflow and signed image attestations (8). 30 + 20 + 8 + 12 + 8 = 78.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLettaPaperclipEdge
Reliability16%205859Paperclip +1
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27081Paperclip +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.26770Paperclip +3
Security & auth14%17.53564Paperclip +29
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88578Letta +7
Transparency & trust7%8.85566Paperclip +11
Negative events≤150-15
TotalC 59.7/100D 52.6/100

Facts side by side

FactLettaPaperclip
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorLettaPaperclip Labs, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transportsstdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-11-062026-10-23
Terms last updatedno date given2026-07-23
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-07-23
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity3.8k stars, 86k npm/wk, 2.2k PyPI/wk99k stars, 60k npm/wk

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Letta

Letta's open-source harness gives agents git-tracked memory blocks, skills, subagents and headless JSON runs, with a $0 plan and public per-agent API prices. It starts in the unrestricted permission mode, defaults to Letta Cloud, sends usage telemetry unless LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 is set, and the V1 API server the comparisons describe is retired.

Paperclip

Board approvals, budgets with a hard stop and an activity log sit above whichever harnesses do the work, with ten stable versions in 90 days. The Claude Code and Codex adapters skip permission prompts and the sandbox by default, twelve security advisories have appeared since April 2026, and a 24 October cross-company read fix is in no stable release.

Before you call either

Letta

  1. Start headless runs with an explicit permission mode such as standard or strict; the default auto-approves tools
  2. Pass --backend local for work that must stay on the machine, since Letta Cloud is the default
  3. Set LETTA_CODE_TELEM=0 in unattended runs if usage events must not be sent
  4. Use letta -p --output-format json for scripted runs and parse the JSON, not the terminal output
  5. Don't plan on the retired V1 REST server or .af AgentFile import; both are gone

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, Letta or Paperclip?

Letta scores 59.7 (C) on agent readiness against Paperclip's 52.6 (D), and leads in 1 of 7 scored categories. Paperclip leads on schema & documentation, security & auth and transparency & trust.

Are Letta and Paperclip open source?

Yes. Letta is open source (Apache-2.0). Paperclip is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Letta or Paperclip

Machine-readable

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