Comparison

Chickpea vs Viktor

One hosted employee on credits, or a team of named teammates on your own keys and your own account.

By Pejman Pour-Moezzi, creator of Chickpea.·Facts checked against the sources on September 4, 2026.

The short version

Viktor is the most polished hosted option in this category. One click from the Slack App Directory, 27 native integrations plus thousands more through managed connectors, and it hands back PDFs, spreadsheets, and deployed web apps. It is one shared employee per workspace, paid in credits, and it runs on Viktor's cloud.

Chickpea is the same idea without the vendor in the middle. Several named teammates instead of one, your own model keys instead of credits, and a deployment in your own Cloudflare account instead of a hosted service. Setup is a deploy button and a Slack install rather than a marketplace click.

Choose Viktor if

You want to install from the Slack App Directory and be working in ten minutes, with no infrastructure at all.
You need Microsoft Teams as well as Slack.
You want finished deliverables (PDFs, decks, spreadsheets, small web apps) more than conversational answers.
You want a vendor with SOC 2 behind the product.

Choose Chickpea if

You want separate teammates with separate accounts and separate memory, not one shared employee.
You want to pay the model provider directly at list price, with no credits to watch.
You want the runtime and the credentials in your own account, and the code in the open.
You want to create and reconfigure teammates by asking in Slack.

Side by side

Twelve things that decide it.

Viktor. A hosted AI employee for Slack and Microsoft Teams. One @Viktor per workspace, paid in credits, with a large managed integration catalog. Chickpea. An open source Slack app that gives a workspace named AI teammates, on your own account. Here is how they line up on the questions teams ask first.

Chickpea12 of 12

Viktor3 of 12, 5 partly

Yes Partly No

Criterion	Chickpea	Viktor
Works inside Slack	Yes. Slack is the product: channels, threads, DMs.	Yes. Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Several named teammates	Yes. Each teammate has its own handle, instructions, memory, and model.	No. One shared @Viktor per workspace.
Open source	Yes. Apache 2.0.	No. Proprietary SaaS.
Runs on your infrastructure	Yes. Your Cloudflare account, or Node on your own host.	No. Runs on Viktor's private cloud.
Your own model keys	Yes. Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, or Workers AI with no key at all.	Partly. An OpenRouter key can be added; otherwise Viktor picks the model.
Choice of model provider	Yes. Four providers, pinned per teammate.	Partly. Viktor routes to models server-side; OpenRouter as the escape hatch.
No seats, no markup	Yes. No seats, no credits. You pay the provider and Cloudflare directly.	No. Credits: $50 for 20,000, up a ladder. A quick task is 100 to 300 credits.
Managed from Slack	Yes. Create and change teammates by asking @Chickpea. Secrets finish in the browser.	Partly. Ask in Slack for some things; settings, integrations, and schedules live in a web dashboard.
Asks before consequential actions	Yes. Sending, deleting, publishing, and bulk changes wait for a person.	Yes. Sensitive actions pause for a person.
Accounts connected per teammate	Yes. 35 connector presets plus HTTP APIs and MCP servers, connected to one teammate each.	Partly. Accounts are connected to the one Viktor, per workspace.
Scheduled work	Yes. Recurring or one-time, created in Slack, posted to a channel.	Yes. Recurring jobs, set in the dashboard.
Streaming, tables, live status	Yes. Streamed replies, native tables, task rows, live status, a signed footer.	Partly. Threads and files; heavy jobs take a minute or two.

Cost

What a 25-person team pays a month.

Three usage levels, from a few questions a week to a teammate in every thread. Chickpea's bill is the infrastructure and the model provider, paid directly. Open the numbers for every assumption.

The numbers and the assumptions

Usage	Requests a month	Chickpea	Viktor Team plan
Light, 5 a person a week	541	$37	$325
Medium, 20 a person a week	2,165	$135	$1,300
Heavy, 50 a person a week	5,413	$330	$3,250

Chickpea

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.

Viktor

250 credits a request, the middle of Viktor's published 100 to 300 range for a quick task. Complex workflows cost 500 to 1,500 and full projects 2,000 to 5,000, so real bills for real work run higher than this.
The published ladder: $50 for 20,000 credits, $75 for 30,000, $100 for 40,000, $200 for 80,000, $300 for 125,000, continuing at about $2.40 per thousand credits above that.
Unused credits roll over one month and the $100 trial credit is not counted.

Estimates from published prices on Viktor's own pages and the sources at the bottom of this page. A request is one mention that reads a thread, maybe calls a tool, and answers. Your usage will differ; the shape of the bars is the point.

In detail

Where they differ.

One employee, or a roster

Viktor is one shared AI employee for the whole workspace. Everyone mentions @Viktor, every integration is connected to it, and it carries shared memory across the company. Viktor's own comparison pages call this the safer default, and for a small team with one assistant in mind it is.

Chickpea starts from the roster. @support, @oncall, and @revops are separate Slack handles with separate instructions, separate memory, and separate connected accounts. The finance teammate has the Stripe key and the support teammate does not, and no prompt can change that, because the account was connected to one teammate and no other.

Credits with a markup, or the provider's price

Viktor bills in credits. The Team plan starts at $50 a month for 20,000 credits and climbs through $100 for 40,000, $200 for 80,000, and $300 for 125,000, with a ladder that goes far higher. A quick task costs 100 to 300 credits, a complex workflow 500 to 1,500, and a full project 2,000 to 5,000. The dollar cost of the underlying model is not published, and one reviewer's summary of user feedback was that credits burn faster than you expect.

Chickpea has no credits. You hold the Anthropic, OpenAI, or OpenRouter account, or use Workers AI on Cloudflare, and the provider bills you at its list price. Every teammate is pinned to its own model, so a triage teammate on a cheap model and a writer on a frontier model each cost what they should.

Their cloud, or your account

Viktor runs on its own private cloud, where it spins up a computer, writes and runs code, and keeps credentials on the server side so they never reach the model. It is SOC 2 Type 1 certified. It is also not something you can self-host or read the source of.

Chickpea deploys into your own Cloudflare account, or onto a Node host you run. Runtime, model traffic, configuration, memory, and connector credentials stay there. The credential rule is the same as Viktor's, the secret is added at egress and never enters model context, but the server it happens on is yours. The code is Apache 2.0.

Configured in a dashboard, or by asking

Viktor installs from the Slack App Directory and connects tools with one-click OAuth. From there, settings, integrations, scheduled tasks, and billing live in a web dashboard, with a few things (billing questions, bug reports) reachable by asking in Slack.

Chickpea has a browser Admin too, and a management MCP server for coding agents, but the door most people use is Slack. Ask @Chickpea to make a support teammate, change its model, add a skill from a GitHub URL, or post a summary every weekday at 9am, and it happens in the thread. Changes that widen what a teammate can reach come back as a proposal to approve. Connecting an account comes back as a link, because a secret never travels through a Slack message.

Fair is fair

Where Viktor is better.

Time to first result. A marketplace install and OAuth clicks, with no deployment, no Cloudflare account, and no provider key.
Integration count. 27 native integrations and a claimed 3,200 more through managed connectors. Chickpea ships 35 presets plus any HTTP API or MCP server, and can opt into Composio for managed OAuth.
Deliverables. Viktor returns board-ready PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations, and deployed web apps. Chickpea answers in Slack with text, native tables, and task rows; files come from the connected tools.
Microsoft Teams, and SOC 2 Type 1. Chickpea is Slack only, and as self-hosted software it inherits your own compliance posture rather than shipping one.

Questions people ask

Can Viktor have multiple agents with different names?

No. Viktor is one shared AI employee per workspace, with a workspace-wide personality and instructions. Chickpea creates a separate Slack handle per teammate, each with its own instructions, memory, model, and connected accounts.

Can I bring my own API key to Viktor?

Partly. Since August 2026 you can connect an OpenRouter key and pick from its models, billed to your OpenRouter account. By default Viktor chooses the model server-side and bills in credits. Chickpea always uses your own keys, across Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, and Cloudflare Workers AI.

How do Viktor credits map to dollars?

The Team plan is $50 a month for 20,000 credits, which is $2.50 per thousand, falling to about $2.40 per thousand higher up the ladder. A quick task costs 100 to 300 credits, so roughly 25 to 75 cents. What the underlying model costs Viktor is not published. With Chickpea you see the provider's bill directly.

Is Viktor open source or self-hostable?

No on both. Viktor is a hosted service. Chickpea is Apache 2.0 and deploys to your own Cloudflare account or a Node host.

Can I configure Viktor from Slack?

Some things. Billing questions and bug reports can be raised in Slack, and workspace-wide personality is set in settings. Integrations, scheduled tasks, and most settings live in the web dashboard. Chickpea lets you create teammates, change instructions and models, add skills, edit memory, and set schedules by asking in Slack, with an Admin panel for the rest.

Does Chickpea support Microsoft Teams?

No. Chickpea is a Slack app. If your company runs on Teams, Viktor is the one of these two that works there.

Which one is more secure?

They share the most important rule: the model never sees a credential; the secret is attached server-side when a request leaves. The difference is whose server. Viktor's runs in Viktor's cloud with SOC 2 Type 1 behind it. Chickpea's runs in your own account, with the source in the open and nothing about your team passing through a vendor.

Try it

Your first teammate, this afternoon.

One deploy into your own Cloudflare account, connect Slack, pick a model, and ask for a teammate in a sentence. Apache 2.0, no seats, no credits.

Deploy to Cloudflare Star on GitHub

Or read how it works first.

More comparisons

Sources

Facts about Viktor come from Viktor's own pages and the coverage linked above, and were last checked on the date in the byline. Products change; if something here is out of date, open an issue and it will be fixed. A plain-text copy of this page is at /compare/viktor.md. Viktor and its logo belong to Viktor, which is not affiliated with Chickpea.