Comparisons
Chickpea, next to the alternatives.
Six products that put AI agents to work for a team, compared on the questions that decide it: whose Slack, how many identities, whose models, whose infrastructure, and what the bill looks like. Each page names where the other product is better.
Comparison pages
vsAnthropic
Chickpea vs Claude Tag
Anthropic's own Slack agent. One @Claude for the whole company, on Claude models, billed by the token on a Team or Enterprise plan.
Read the comparison
vsxAIChickpea vs Grok Bot
xAI's app for named, always-on agents with their own cloud computers. Its own desktop and mobile app, on Grok models, bundled into $100 to $300 a month subscriptions.
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vsViktorChickpea vs Viktor
A hosted AI employee for Slack and Microsoft Teams. One @Viktor per workspace, paid in credits, with a large managed integration catalog.
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vsBlock
Chickpea vs Buzz
Block's open source workspace where people and agents are equal members, with chat, code hosting, and workflows on Nostr identities. A Slack replacement, not a Slack app.
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vsOpenClaw Foundation
Chickpea vs OpenClaw
The open source personal agent gateway. Runs on your machine or a server and connects one agent to Slack, Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, and more.
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vsNous Research
Chickpea vs Hermes Agent
Nous Research's open source, self-improving agent. One install, twenty chat platforms, a Slack gateway with streaming and task cards, and a Bot Mode for specialist bots.
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All at once
Every product on one table.
The same twelve criteria as the individual pages. Each page has the reasoning behind every mark. Filled means yes, half means partly, empty means no.
Yes Partly No
| Criterion | Grok Bot | Viktor | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works inside Slack | Yes. Slack is the product: channels, threads, DMs. | Yes. Slack only during the beta. | No. Its own app; Slack is one of the tools a bot can connect to. | Yes. Slack and Microsoft Teams. | No. Buzz is its own workspace and replaces Slack. | Yes, as one of ten channels. Socket Mode or HTTP, your own Slack app. | Yes, as one of twenty platforms, through your own Slack app. |
| Several named teammates | Yes. Each teammate has its own handle, instructions, memory, and model. | No. One @Claude under the organization's identity. | Yes. A roster of named bots, each with a job and its own computer. | No. One shared @Viktor per workspace. | Yes. Each agent is a member with its own Nostr keypair. | Partly. One bot token per workspace config; more handles mean more gateways. | Yes. Bot Mode builds specialist bots; the gateway takes several bot tokens. |
| Open source | Yes. Apache 2.0. | No. Proprietary, hosted by Anthropic. | No. Proprietary, hosted by xAI. | No. Proprietary SaaS. | Yes. Apache 2.0. | Yes. MIT, run by a non-profit foundation. | Yes. MIT. |
| Runs on your infrastructure | Yes. Your Cloudflare account, or Node on your own host. | No. Runs on Anthropic's infrastructure. | No. Each bot runs on an xAI cloud computer. | No. Runs on Viktor's private cloud. | Yes. Docker, PostgreSQL, Redis, and S3-compatible storage; or the hosted beta. | Yes. Your laptop or a server, with Node 22 or newer. | Yes. Linux, macOS, WSL2, Docker, SSH, Daytona, or Modal. |
| Your own model keys | Yes. Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, or Workers AI with no key at all. | No. Usage is billed to the Anthropic plan. | No. Usage draws on the subscription's allowance. | Partly. An OpenRouter key can be added; otherwise Viktor picks the model. | Yes. Agents are external (Claude Code, Codex, goose) and bring their own. | Yes. Any provider's key, including local models. | Yes. Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI, or any endpoint. |
| Choice of model provider | Yes. Four providers, pinned per teammate. | No. Anthropic models only. | No. Grok models only. | Partly. Viktor routes to models server-side; OpenRouter as the escape hatch. | Yes. Whatever the connected agent runs on. | Yes. Whatever you configure. | Yes. Any endpoint. |
| No seats, no markup | Yes. No seats, no credits. You pay the provider and Cloudflare directly. | No. Needs Team (10+ seats) or Enterprise, then tokens on top. | No. Bundled into $100 to $300 a month plans, per person, plus overage. | No. Credits: $50 for 20,000, up a ladder. A quick task is 100 to 300 credits. | Yes. Free hosted beta; self-hosting is your infrastructure. | Yes. Free software; you pay the host and the provider. | Yes. Free software; you pay the host and the provider. |
| Managed from Slack | Yes. Create and change teammates by asking @Chickpea. Secrets finish in the browser. | Partly. Owners provision it and connect tools from the admin side. | No. Bots are created and run from the Grok Bot app. | Partly. Ask in Slack for some things; settings, integrations, and schedules live in a web dashboard. | No Slack. Agents are managed with buzz-cli and YAML workflows. | No. Configured on the command line and in openclaw.json. | Partly. Slash commands like /model in Slack; setup and config on the host. |
| Asks before consequential actions | Yes. Sending, deleting, publishing, and bulk changes wait for a person. | Not built in. It can act, and jump in, unprompted. | Partly. Bots are built to finish jobs unsupervised. | Yes. Sensitive actions pause for a person. | Partly. Scoped permissions per agent; review approvals for code. | Partly. DM pairing codes and allowlists; no built-in gate on actions. | Partly. An allowlist of member IDs gates who can talk to it; no built-in gate on actions. |
| Accounts connected per teammate | Yes. 35 connector presets plus HTTP APIs and MCP servers, connected to one teammate each. | Partly. Tools are connected once by an admin, for the one Claude. | Yes. Each bot signs into its own tools. | Partly. Accounts are connected to the one Viktor, per workspace. | Partly. Each agent has a key and scope; outside accounts are the agent's own. | Partly. Tools and keys live on the host and are shared by what runs there. | Partly. Per-bot model, memory, and skills; tool credentials live on the host. |
| Scheduled work | Yes. Recurring or one-time, created in Slack, posted to a channel. | Partly. It picks up tasks over time; no schedule you set in Slack. | Yes. Routines start work without a prompt. | Yes. Recurring jobs, set in the dashboard. | Yes. YAML workflow automation. | Yes. Cron-style routines. | Yes. Cron and routines. |
| Streaming, tables, live status | Yes. Streamed replies, native tables, task rows, live status, a signed footer. | Partly. Replies in threads; reads whole conversations. | No. Slack is a connector, so replies are plain messages. | Partly. Threads and files; heavy jobs take a minute or two. | No Slack. Its own client, with threads, voice, and media. | Partly. Threads, mentions, reactions, slash command; text chunked at 4,000 characters. | Yes. Native streaming, task cards, Block Kit, slash commands. |
| Yes, out of 12 | 12 | 1 +4 partly | 3 +1 partly | 3 +5 partly | 7 +2 partly | 6 +5 partly | 8 +4 partly |
How these pages are made
Every fact about another product comes from that product's own pages or from named coverage, linked at the bottom of each comparison, with the date it was last checked. Every page has a section on where the other product is better. Cost figures model the same 25-person team at the same three usage levels, with the assumptions written out.
For agents and scripts
Each comparison has a markdown twin at the same URL with .md appended, and /llms.txt lists them all. Products change; if something is out of date, open an issue.
