Get an audit

Head to head · Agent multi agent · October 2026 research run

Paperclip vs Prime Agent

Prime Agent scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Paperclip's 59 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Paperclip leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do agent multi agent.

PaperclipPaperclip Labs, Inc. · Agent harness C59/100#354 of 578 Prime AgentPrime Intellect · Agent harness C60.5/100#317 of 578

Which one, for what

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

  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 42
  • Security & auth, 64 against 50

Watch for

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

Prime Agent C

Good for Long-running research and coding work where one model drives subagents, schedules and goals from code, and where the owner can isolate the machine.

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • No incidents deducted, where Paperclip loses 10 points for them

Watch for

No approval prompts and no sandbox. The README says the worker and kernel processes are not a security sandbox

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runPaperclipPrime AgentEdge
Reliability16%206665Paperclip +1
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28142Paperclip +39
Agent ergonomics13%16.27073Prime Agent +3
Security & auth14%17.56450Paperclip +14
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87879Prime Agent +1
Transparency & trust7%8.86564Paperclip +1
Negative events≤15-100
Total59 · C60.5 · C

Facts side by side

FactPaperclipPrime Agent
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorPaperclip Labs, Inc.Prime Intellect
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-052026-10-07
Terms last updated2026-07-23no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-07-23no date given
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity99k stars, 60k npm/wk22k stars

Verdicts

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.

Prime Agent

Budgets for turns, tokens and time bound an autonomous run, and sessions survive a closed terminal through a supervising daemon. Model-written Python and shell commands run with the user's rights, with no approval step and no sandbox, and the Rust build on the main branch ships only as nightly betas.

Before you call either

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

Prime Agent

  1. Run it in a disposable clone, container or VM. It executes model-written Python and shell commands with the user's rights and asks nothing first
  2. Set PRIME_AGENT_TELEMETRY=0 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 before the first run if usage metrics must not leave the machine
  3. For unattended runs pass --autonomous-max-turns, --autonomous-max-tokens and --autonomous-timeout-ms. Reaching a limit does not mean the task succeeded
  4. Headless use is -p with --mode json per the argument parser. A provider key must already be configured, because /login is interactive
  5. The -t/--tools, -nt/--no-tools and -nbt/--no-builtin-tools flags were removed and now fail as unknown options

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Paperclip or Prime Agent?

Prime Agent scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Paperclip's 59 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Paperclip leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

Are Paperclip and Prime Agent open source?

Yes. Paperclip is open source (MIT). Prime Agent is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Paperclip or Prime Agent

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report