Business Process Automation Companies Own the Platform. Clone Owns a Three-Layer Agent You Can Uninstall.

The term almost always refers to enterprise BPA platform vendors: Appian, Pega, UiPath, IBM Watsonx Orchestrate, Camunda, Nintex, Automation Anywhere, ServiceNow, Kissflow, Workato. Every top result (First Page Sage, CodeDistrict, Fortune Business Insights, Cflow, Tasrie IT) ranks a subset of those. All are platform vendors. Your automations are modeled in their DSL, executed in their workflow engine, and stored in their database. The listicles typically rank them by market share, BPMN fidelity, connector count, or analyst rating.

Because Clone is not the same category. Those listicles rank platforms that enterprise IT buys to model and orchestrate formal processes. Clone is an agent you install on one person's machine to drive the apps that person already uses. Comparing Clone to Appian is like comparing a power tool to a factory; both 'automate' but the unit of deployment and the buyer are different. Clone's natural comparison is to a virtual assistant plus a light-weight automation tool, not to an enterprise BPA platform.

Open /Users/matthewdi/ai-for-consultants/website/src/components/architecture.tsx. The file renders six stacked cards on the homepage: You, Clone Planner, Clone Computer Agent, Clone Memory, Your Apps, Your Business. The three Clone cards carry bg-indigo-50; the three yours carry bg-stone-100. Below the diagram, lines 125-130 render a legend with the literal text 'Clone layer (removable)' next to an indigo swatch and 'Your existing stack' next to a stone swatch. The word 'removable' is hardcoded in JSX and paints to the DOM. That is the anchor fact for this page.

Three daemons stop (Planner, Computer Agent, Memory). Six launchd entries unload (the scheduled rituals). Nothing happens to your apps; the Computer Agent was driving them from the outside, not integrating with them via an API you'd have to de-integrate. OAuth tokens in your system keychain stay untouched because Clone never stored them itself. The ~/.clone/memory directory stays by default; pass --purge to wipe it. Your invoices in QuickBooks, emails in Gmail, deals in HubSpot are all unchanged because Clone wrote them as native rows in those apps.

Zapier, Make, and n8n are also platforms; your zaps, scenarios, and workflows live in their database. They have middleware on your behalf. Canceling Zapier means the zaps stop AND the zap definitions are inaccessible. They are in a better position than enterprise BPA for solo operators (cheaper, faster to set up) but they share the 'lives inside the vendor' property. Clone's rituals are markdown files on your disk, and the execution layer drives your apps' own UIs, so the ritual outlasts the Clone subscription.

HoneyBook and Dubsado ask you to migrate INTO their stack. Your CRM, your proposals, your invoices, your client portal all become HoneyBook's. The automation is a feature of the tool that also owns the data. Clone does the opposite; it drives the CRM, invoicing, and proposal tools you already use. Cancel HoneyBook and you have to migrate the data back out. Cancel Clone and the data was always in the underlying apps.

Clone runs locally by default (Solo tier). Your client files, emails, and contracts never leave your machine because Clone is driving apps whose data is already on your machine or in your own cloud accounts. For enterprises, the Enterprise tier supports on-prem or private-cloud deployment with bring-your-own-LLM (local or private), SOC 2 Type II, and SSO/SCIM. An enterprise BPA platform typically centralizes data in the vendor's cloud; Clone never does unless you explicitly pick a cloud deployment.

Yes, that is the Boutique tier ($129/seat/mo). You get shared client memory across the team, firm-wide playbooks, role-based permissions, and Slack/Teams notifications. The boutique is still driving its existing stack (HubSpot, QuickBooks, Gmail, Drive); Clone sits on top. The firm does not adopt a platform, just an agent per seat.

A concrete process, a cost baseline, and a 30-minute trial. The concrete process is something you do repeatedly (Monday invoicing, kickoff emails, Friday retros). The cost baseline is what a BPA vendor would quote for that process, typically a 3-6 month engagement starting at five figures. The trial is 14 days, $0 upfront. If Clone ships the process as a ritual in under an hour, the BPA company quote is for a platform, not for the automation itself.

Clone does not ship a BPMN modeler, and the ritual markdown is not BPMN XML. If compliance explicitly requires BPMN, Clone can render a diagram on demand from any ritual file (the steps, tools, and decision branches are all encoded). The diagram is a derived view of the ritual, not the runtime spec itself. In BPA platforms the BPMN model IS the runtime spec; it is why migrating off is expensive. In Clone the ritual file is the runtime spec; the BPMN is optional.

File: src/components/architecture.tsx. Lines 5-42 declare the six layers as a const array. Lines 44-65 declare the four principles; the third one is titled 'Tool agnostic by design' and its description says 'Clone uses the apps you already pay for. Switch CRMs, change invoicing tools, add a new client portal, Clone adapts in the same conversation. No re-wiring required.' Lines 80-86 of the same file say 'Remove Clone and your business still runs, your data is still where it was.' Lines 125-130 render the legend with 'Clone layer (removable)' in a span. All four references are in the same 160-line file and all four render on /.

Enterprise BPA companies rent you the platform your automations live in. Clone rents you the three-layer agent that drives the apps you already own. Both deliver automation; only one of them disappears cleanly when you cancel.