---
title: "Chickpea vs Grok Bot: named AI agents, in Slack or in a new app"
description: "Grok Bot gives each person named agents in a separate app, on Grok models, from $100 a month per person. Chickpea puts named teammates in the Slack you already use, open source, on any model."
canonical: https://chickpea.co/compare/grokbot
author: Pejman Pour-Moezzi (https://x.com/pejmanjohn)
verified: 2026-09-04
---

# Chickpea vs Grok Bot

> Named agents in a new app for each person, or named teammates in the Slack your whole team already shares.

By Pejman Pour-Moezzi, creator of Chickpea. Facts checked against the sources on September 4, 2026. The HTML page is at https://chickpea.co/compare/grokbot; the full site index for agents is at https://chickpea.co/llms.txt.

**Grok Bot** (xAI): 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.

**Chickpea**: an open source Slack app that gives a workspace named AI teammates, each with its own handle, instructions, memory, connected accounts, schedules, and model, deployed to your own Cloudflare account or a Node host.

## The short version
Grok Bot got the identity part right. You give a bot a name and a job, it gets its own cloud computer with a browser and logins, and bots can talk to each other in group chats. The catch is where it lives: a new desktop and mobile app, tied to one person's subscription, on Grok models only.

Chickpea puts the same idea inside Slack, shared by the whole workspace. A teammate answers in the channel where the question was asked, in front of everyone, with the accounts the team gave it. Nobody installs anything, and nobody adopts a second chat app.


### Choose Grok Bot if
- You want a personal agent with its own computer that can log into websites and click around for you.
- You already pay for SuperGrok Heavy or a Cursor plan that includes it.
- You want a polished consumer app on desktop and iPhone, and Slack is not where your work happens.

### Choose Chickpea if
- Your team works in Slack and you want the agents in the same channels as the people.
- You want one deployment the whole workspace shares instead of a subscription per person.
- You want to choose the model per teammate, from more than one vendor.
- You want the code, the runtime, and the credentials in an account you control.

## Side by side

| Criterion | Chickpea | Grok Bot |
|---|---|---|
| Works inside Slack | Yes. Slack is the product: channels, threads, DMs. | No. Its own app; Slack is one of the tools a bot can connect to. |
| Several named teammates | Yes. Each teammate has its own handle, instructions, memory, and model. | Yes. A roster of named bots, each with a job and its own computer. |
| Open source | Yes. Apache 2.0. | No. Proprietary, hosted by xAI. |
| Runs on your infrastructure | Yes. Your Cloudflare account, or Node on your own host. | No. Each bot runs on an xAI cloud computer. |
| Your own model keys | Yes. Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, or Workers AI with no key at all. | No. Usage draws on the subscription's allowance. |
| Choice of model provider | Yes. Four providers, pinned per teammate. | No. Grok models only. |
| No seats, no markup | Yes. No seats, no credits. You pay the provider and Cloudflare directly. | No. Bundled into $100 to $300 a month plans, per person, plus overage. |
| Managed from Slack | Yes. Create and change teammates by asking @Chickpea. Secrets finish in the browser. | No. Bots are created and run from the Grok Bot app. |
| Asks before consequential actions | Yes. Sending, deleting, publishing, and bulk changes wait for a person. | Partly. Bots are built to finish jobs unsupervised. |
| Accounts connected per teammate | Yes. 35 connector presets plus HTTP APIs and MCP servers, connected to one teammate each. | Yes. Each bot signs into its own tools. |
| Scheduled work | Yes. Recurring or one-time, created in Slack, posted to a channel. | Yes. Routines start work without a prompt. |
| Streaming, tables, live status | Yes. Streamed replies, native tables, task rows, live status, a signed footer. | No. Slack is a connector, so replies are plain messages. |

## What a 25-person team pays a month

Estimates from published prices. A request is one mention that reads a thread, maybe calls a tool, and answers.

| Usage | Requests a month | Chickpea | Grok Bot on SuperGrok Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light, 5 a person a week | 541 | $37 | $2,500 |
| Medium, 20 a person a week | 2,165 | $135 | $2,500 |
| Heavy, 50 a person a week | 5,413 | $330 | $2,500 |

Chickpea assumptions:
- Cloudflare Workers Paid at $5 a month. Durable Objects, D1, and the cron trigger stay inside the plan's included usage at this volume.
- Model usage at $0.06 a request on a mid-tier model, paid to the provider directly. Pick a frontier model for some teammates and that line goes up; pick a small one and it goes down.
- Slack: named handles need a paid Slack plan, which a team of this size already has.

Grok Bot assumptions:
- SuperGrok Plus at $100 a person a month for all 25 people, since bots belong to a subscriber. The Cursor Teams Premium route is $120 a seat.
- Usage stays within each subscription's weekly allowance. Heavy use adds on-demand charges billed from model and token cost, which are not modeled here.
- The flat line is the point: with per-person subscriptions, a quiet month costs the same as a busy one.

## Where they differ

### A new app for each person, or the Slack you already share
Grok Bot is a surface of its own: a Bot roster, chats, and artifacts, in a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux, and an iOS app. Your bots live there. Slack, Gmail, and Calendar are tools a bot can sign into, so a bot can post to Slack, but the conversation with the bot happens in Grok Bot.

Chickpea has no app of its own for the people using it. A teammate is a Slack handle. You mention @support in #customers, it reacts, shows its status under the composer, streams the answer into the thread, and signs the reply with its name and the model it used. The whole team sees the same answer, and the next person can pick the thread up.


### Personal subscriptions, or one deployment for the workspace
Grok Bot comes bundled with SuperGrok Plus at $100 a month, SuperGrok Heavy at $300, or Cursor plans from $60 to $200 a month, and Cursor Teams Premium at $120 a seat. Each subscription includes a weekly usage allowance, with on-demand usage on top, and there is no Grok Bot specific spend cap yet. The bots belong to the subscriber.

Chickpea is one deployment for one Slack workspace, Apache 2.0 licensed, with no seats. Twenty-five people or two hundred share the same teammates. The bill is Cloudflare Workers Paid at $5 a month plus your model provider, both paid directly. Each teammate is pinned to its own model, which is the main cost control.


### Grok only, or the model per job
Grok Bot runs on Grok, and Grok 4.6 is a capable model. It is also the only option.

Chickpea supports Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and Cloudflare Workers AI, pinned per teammate. When a better or cheaper model ships, you change one setting on one teammate, by asking in Slack.


### Unsupervised by design, or asks first
Grok Bot's pitch is that bots finish multi-step jobs without being watched. That is what you want for a research routine, and less what you want for a bot with your Gmail login.

A Chickpea teammate asks before anything consequential. Sending an email, deleting a record, publishing to a new channel, or a bulk change waits for a person to click a button in the thread, unless you wrote into its instructions that it may proceed. Credentials never reach the model; the model picks an account by name and the secret is added at the last moment on the way out.


## Where Grok Bot is better
- A computer per bot. Each Grok Bot gets a persistent cloud machine with a browser, file access, and its own logins, so it can operate websites that have no API. A Chickpea teammate works through connectors, MCP servers, HTTP APIs, and an optional coding sandbox; it does not drive a browser for you.
- Bots working with bots. Grok Bots message each other, share threads, and hand off ownership in group chats. Chickpea teammates each do their own job; they do not delegate to one another.
- Mobile. Grok Bot has an iOS app. Chickpea has whatever Slack client you already use, which is also mobile, but the admin panel is a browser app.
- No deployment. Sign in and start. Chickpea is a deploy, then a Slack install, then a provider key.

## Questions people ask

### Does Grok Bot work in Slack?
Not as a Slack app. Grok Bot is its own desktop and mobile app. A bot can connect to Slack as one of its tools and post there, but you talk to the bot in Grok Bot. Chickpea teammates live in Slack channels and threads and have no app of their own.

### Is Grok Bot multiplayer?
Bots can collaborate with each other in group chats, and Cursor Teams adds shared billing and analytics. But a bot belongs to a person's subscription and lives in that person's app. Chickpea is one deployment for the whole Slack workspace, and every teammate is visible to everyone in the channels it is published to.

### What does Grok Bot cost?
It is bundled into SuperGrok Plus ($100 a month), SuperGrok Heavy ($300), Cursor Pro+ ($60), Cursor Ultra ($200), or Cursor Teams Premium ($120 a seat). Each includes a weekly usage allowance, with on-demand usage billed on top. There is no free tier. Chickpea has no price; you pay Cloudflare and your model provider.

### Can I use Grok models with Chickpea?
Through OpenRouter, yes, where available. Chickpea supports Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and Cloudflare Workers AI as providers, and each teammate is pinned to one model.

### Can Grok Bot run on my own infrastructure?
No. Each bot runs on an xAI cloud computer. Chickpea deploys to your own Cloudflare account with one click, or runs on Node on a host you operate.

### Can Chickpea browse websites like a Grok Bot?
Not with a browser of its own. Chickpea teammates use 35 connector presets, your own HTTP APIs, MCP servers, GitHub repositories, and on Cloudflare an optional coding sandbox. If your job needs a bot clicking through a website with no API, Grok Bot fits better.

### Is Grok Bot open source?
No. Chickpea is Apache 2.0 licensed, and the whole thing is on GitHub.

## Sources
- [Unite.AI: xAI launches Grok Bot, always-on AI teammates with their own cloud computers](https://www.unite.ai/xai-launches-grok-bot-always-on-ai-teammates-with-their-own-cloud-computers/)
- [Layer3: What is Grok Bot](https://www.layer3labs.io/guides/what-is-grok-bot)
- [eesel: Grok Bot pricing](https://www.eesel.ai/blog/grok-bot-pricing)
- [MindStudio: What is Grokbot](https://www.mindstudio.ai/blog/grokbot-xai-agent-app)
- [Chickpea docs: requirements and costs](https://docs.chickpea.co/start/requirements-and-costs/)
- [Chickpea docs: manage from Slack](https://docs.chickpea.co/slack/manage-from-slack/)
- [Chickpea docs: replies, tables, and status](https://docs.chickpea.co/slack/replies/)
- [Chickpea docs: security model](https://docs.chickpea.co/security/security-model/)
- [Chickpea source on GitHub](https://github.com/pejmanjohn/chickpea)

## More comparisons
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- [Chickpea vs Viktor](https://chickpea.co/compare/viktor.md)
- [Chickpea vs Buzz](https://chickpea.co/compare/buzz.md)
- [Chickpea vs OpenClaw](https://chickpea.co/compare/openclaw.md)
- [Chickpea vs Hermes Agent](https://chickpea.co/compare/hermes.md)
- [All comparisons](https://chickpea.co/compare)

## Try Chickpea
- Site: https://chickpea.co/
- Deploy to Cloudflare: https://deploy.workers.cloudflare.com/?url=https://github.com/pejmanjohn/chickpea
- Source, Apache 2.0: https://github.com/pejmanjohn/chickpea
- Docs: https://docs.chickpea.co