Business process automation software
Software with zero connectors.
Every business process automation software on the first page of Google is an API orchestrator. Zapier lists 7,000 connectors. Microsoft Power Automate lists 1,300. Make lists 1,800. Clone lists one: your screen. Its Computer Agent layer, defined on lines 18-22 of architecture.tsx, is described as reads the screen, clicks, types, scrolls. That is the entire integration layer, and the reason this page is not a BPA category listicle.
The anchor fact
One layer in the architecture file handles every integration.
Clone's website and product share a codebase. Open it. Open src/components/architecture.tsx. The file is 159 lines. Lines 5 through 42 define six layers: You, Clone Planner, Clone Computer Agent, Clone Memory, Your Apps, Your Business. The layer that speaks to any app is lines 18-22. It reads, verbatim:
No API. No webhook. No OAuth scope. No connector catalog. The sublabel, reads the screen, clicks, types, scrolls, is the integration method, and it is a universal one. The first founding principle, lines 46-48, is the other half of the story. It reads:
Zero connectors, and the work stays on your laptop. Those two sentences are downstream of everything else on this page.
The names every SERP article ranks
Eighteen familiar platforms, every one of them ranked by connector count.
The listicles for business process automation software rank these vendors by how many apps they integrate with. The count is not a feature, it is the ceiling of what each platform will ever automate. The second row below is how each vendor describes its own ceiling.
Five frames, one app with no listing anywhere
Monday, 8:12 AM. An app no BPA vendor will ever add a connector for.
This is the canonical case we hear from consultants. A client brings a homegrown portal. No vendor will build a connector for it. Here are the five frames of what Clone does with it, from sentence to filed document.
08:12 sentence → 08:17 filed, no connector written
Monday 08:12
Four numbers, four keystrokes
The zero-connector claim, in numbers.
Not vanity metrics. The four numbers that take the claim from the architecture file to the pricing page.
We searched the top ranking articles for business process automation software in April 2026: Gartner Peer Insights, Microsoft Power Automate, IBM, cflowapps, Atlassian. Every one of them ranks or describes platforms by connector count. Zero of them evaluate a BPA software that ships without connectors.
Apps a cloud BPA software never covers
The stacks of real practices live outside the connector catalog.
Each card below is a class of app a working consultant runs into every month, and a class of app cloud BPA platforms do not address. Clone does, because the integration is the screen, and these apps all have a screen.
A client's internal portal with no API
Your client runs an in-house tool a contractor built in 2019. It has no API, no SDK, no webhook. A Zapier integration would need the client's engineering team to build one, get it approved, and maintain it. Clone's Computer Agent opens the portal in a browser, reads the page, and clicks the same buttons a person would. That is the whole integration.
Desktop QuickBooks
Not QuickBooks Online. The desktop version your accounting client still runs on Windows because their CPA never migrated. Power Automate's connector only speaks to the Online SKU. Clone drives the desktop app through its actual UI on a Windows VM or a Parallels session on your Mac.
A courts filing system
State e-filing portals are web forms behind a login. They do not expose APIs to the public. Law firm consultants lose half a morning a week on them. Clone fills the form, attaches the exhibit PDF, clicks submit, and captures the confirmation number on the way out.
Native macOS apps
Bear, MindNode, OmniFocus, Notion's desktop app, Numbers, Pages, and the other tools a consulting practice runs on a Mac. No cloud BPA addresses them because they are not cloud services. Clone operates them through macOS accessibility the same way VoiceOver does.
A SaaS tool whose API is paywalled
Many mid-tier SaaS tools hide their API behind the enterprise plan. For a solo practice paying the $19/mo tier, the API simply does not exist. Clone does not care. It uses the UI the $19/mo plan gives you. The feature ceiling is the same as what you already bought.
Every one of these is out of scope for a cloud BPA software and in scope for Clone.
A tour of the integration layer
Five beats, from sentence to screen.
The five stages a single ritual passes through. Nothing here names a vendor API or a connector slug. Each step lives in a layer architecture.tsx already describes.
You type a sentence into the chat window
The input is a plain-English instruction, not a trigger, not a flow chart, not a BPMN diagram. The instruction names an outcome, not a path. Clone parses intent, not shape.
Clone Planner picks the apps
The Planner layer reads the sentence, checks Clone Memory for how you have done similar tasks before, and picks the apps it needs to open. It does not pick a connector, it picks a tool on your desktop.
Clone Computer Agent operates the screens
Lines 18-22 of architecture.tsx: reads the screen, clicks, types, scrolls. The agent uses OS accessibility on macOS and Windows, and the browser's DOM in a window, to navigate real UIs the way a person would.
Clone Memory writes the ritual back
The sequence of actions becomes a named ritual in ~/.clone/memory. Next time you ask for the same outcome, the Planner skips discovery and goes straight to the known steps.
Your apps do the thing, unchanged
Gmail sent a mail. QuickBooks posted an invoice. HubSpot updated a contact. Same user agent, same audit trail, same downstream systems. Nothing you touch knows Clone was the one pressing the keys.
The integration layer, visualized
Every app on the left, every outcome on the right, one hub in the middle.
Left column: the actual apps a consulting practice uses, mixed cloud and desktop, mixed first-party and client-built. Right column: the outcomes the ritual delivers. The hub in the middle is the Clone Computer Agent. It is the only integration surface involved.
real apps → one screen-driven hub → real outcomes
What zero connectors unlocks
Eight doors a connector catalog leaves closed.
Each item below is a capability the connector-based model structurally cannot reach. Clone reaches them because its integration layer does not depend on the vendor publishing an API or a BPA company maintaining a connector.
reachable because the integration is the screen
- Every app you already paid for, whether or not it is on any BPA catalog
- Internal portals a client built, with no API and no plan to build one
- Desktop-only ERP and accounting tools older than Zapier itself
- Native macOS and Windows apps the cloud BPA industry does not serve
- The paid tier of a SaaS tool, without paying for the enterprise API add-on
- A regulated data workflow where the client data must stay on your device
- A ritual you can change by typing a sentence, not editing a canvas
- A stack swap (new CRM, new invoicing tool) with no connector rewiring
The same engagement, two kinds of software
Law firm, three awkward apps, two very different weeks.
The same engagement, evaluated on cloud BPA software and on Clone. Left side, the connector catalog's ceiling decides the outcome. Right side, the screen is the integration, the three apps are all in scope, the retainer happens.
Same firm. Two kinds of software.
You signed a law firm. They use a state e-filing portal, desktop QuickBooks, and a client onboarding tool their IT team wrote in 2018. You open Zapier and Make. None of the three apps is listed. You email the IT team, who say the onboarding tool has no API and never will. You quote the firm for ninety days of consulting just to integrate their stack, they decline.
- State e-filing portal: no API, no connector, out of scope
- Desktop QuickBooks: cloud BPA cannot reach it at all
- Custom onboarding tool: no API, IT team will not build one
- Outcome: the engagement dies before day one
“Clone operates your desktop apps from your desktop. Client files, emails, contracts, and transcripts never leave your computer. Your engagements stay confidential by default.”
architecture.tsx, lines 46-48
What the command line shows
The connectors list is intentionally empty.
Rituals live as plain markdown under ~/.clone/memory/rituals/. The connectors list is structurally empty, because the integration layer lives one level up, in the agent that reads the screen.
Row by row, where the architecture shows up
Eight axes on integration architecture
Every row below is a consequence of the connector-vs-screen choice. Each one is a question a listicle does not ask because every entry on a listicle gave the same answer.
| Feature | Connector-catalog BPA software | Clone |
|---|---|---|
| How it talks to apps | Calls vendor APIs through a connector catalog maintained by the BPA company and the app vendor | Reads the screen, clicks buttons, types into fields, scrolls, the same way a person does |
| Coverage ceiling | Bounded by the catalog. If the app is not in the list, or the connector lags on new features, you are stuck | Bounded by what you can see on your screen. If you can use the app, Clone can use the app |
| Desktop and legacy apps | Near zero support. Cloud BPA software is structurally a cloud-to-cloud tool, it cannot reach into a Windows .exe | First-class. Clone runs on your machine and drives native apps through OS accessibility |
| A client-provided internal tool | Needs a custom connector commissioned from the BPA vendor, or a webhook their dev team has to build and maintain | Walk Clone through the tool once. It learns the fields and reuses them next time |
| Where client data sits while automating | Flows through the vendor's cloud. The payload of every run is logged on their servers, under their retention policy | Stays on your laptop. The agent operates local processes and local browser tabs. No vendor payload log |
| OAuth scopes, API keys, rotations | Required for every connector. Breakage on rotation is a predictable failure mode | Not required. The agent signs in through the app's own UI. Credentials sit where they already sit |
| What breaks when the vendor deprecates an API version | Your scenarios until the connector is updated. Historical problem across the category | Nothing. The UI did not change, so the agent did not notice |
| Adding a new app to your stack | Check the connector catalog. If it is there, wire the triggers. If not, wait or build one | Use it once with Clone watching. It is now part of your rituals |
The one-sentence rule of thumb
If the BPA software you are evaluating asks you to count its connectors, it has already named its ceiling.
The connector count is the marketing number that doubles as the feature ceiling. Every app not on the list is an engagement you cannot book, a client tool you cannot touch, or a retainer you cannot scope. A BPA software built around a different integration primitive, the screen, does not have that ceiling. It has a different one, which is the set of apps a person can operate with keyboard and mouse. That set is much larger.
Pick a BPA software whose ceiling matches the stack you actually serve. Clone's ceiling is the screen.
“We signed a surgery practice as a retainer client. Their intake runs on a HIPAA-covered portal their hospital built in 2017, no API, no plan for one. I had already told two BPA vendors I could not serve the engagement. I walked Clone through the portal on a Tuesday afternoon. By Thursday it was filing patient intakes, flagging exceptions, and keeping every byte of it on my laptop. The connector question never came up, because there were no connectors to ship.”
The ranking axis the SERP is not using
The best business process automation software for a consulting practice is the one that covers the apps your clients actually run.
The top-ranked articles rank vendors on connector count, canvas depth, and enterprise pedigree. The axis that decides whether a real solo engagement closes is a different one: does the software address the awkward app the client is already using? On a connector model, the answer is a lookup against a catalog. On a screen-driven model, the answer is yes if you can see the app.
Pick the axis that matches the engagements on your pipeline, not the one the listicles happen to optimize for.
Book a 30-minute call
Bring the app no BPA vendor will automate for you.
On the call, name one app in your current stack that Zapier, Power Automate, or Make cannot touch. An internal portal, a desktop ERP, a state government site, a SaaS tier with no API. We will walk through what a Clone ritual looks like on that exact tool, and whether it can run on your screen by the end of the week.
Book a 30-minute callZero connectors, three layers. We drive one of your apps, no API.
Twenty minutes together. Pick any app on your Mac; we let Clone read its screen and ship one piece of real work through it, no integration code.
Business process automation software, the zero-connector edition
What makes Clone different from other business process automation software in one sentence?
Clone has no connector catalog. Every other BPA software on page one of Google (Zapier, Microsoft Power Automate, Make, n8n, Workato) is fundamentally an API orchestrator, wired to vendor APIs through a maintained directory of connectors. Clone's integration layer is your screen. The Clone Computer Agent, defined on lines 18-22 of architecture.tsx, is described as 'Reads the screen, clicks, types, scrolls.' That is one integration method that covers every app you can open.
If Clone uses no APIs, is it slower than a cloud BPA platform?
For a single API call, yes, calling an API directly is faster than typing into a UI. For a small consulting practice running dozens of rituals across a heterogeneous stack, speed of the individual call is not the bottleneck. Coverage is. A ritual that Zapier cannot run at all because the app is not in its catalog is infinitely slower than Clone filling the form. In practice, a typical Clone ritual completes in seconds, within the range of a human operating the same UI.
Where in the Clone codebase is the 'no connectors' property documented?
src/components/architecture.tsx, lines 5-42 define the six layers of the product. The fifth layer, named 'Clone Computer Agent' on lines 18-22, carries the sublabel 'Reads the screen, clicks, types, scrolls.' It is the single integration layer. No other layer in the file speaks to an API. The four founding principles are on lines 44-65. The first one, 'Runs on your machine' on lines 46-48, states explicitly that client files, emails, contracts, and transcripts never leave your computer.
Does Clone work on my client's internal web portal that has no public API?
Yes, and this is the specific case cloud BPA software cannot address. Walk Clone through the portal once while it watches. It learns the fields, the buttons, and the flow. On subsequent runs, you describe the outcome in plain English and the agent executes it by driving the same portal UI. No connector is written, because none is required.
Does Clone work on desktop apps like QuickBooks Desktop, native Excel, or a Windows-only ERP?
Yes. Because Clone runs on your computer, it drives native desktop apps through OS-level accessibility on macOS and Windows. QuickBooks Desktop, Sage 100, native Excel, MYOB, Xero's desktop companion, legacy Oracle clients, and other apps cloud BPA platforms cannot reach are all in scope. If you can use the app with keyboard and mouse, Clone can use the app with keyboard and mouse.
How is this different from RPA platforms like UiPath or Automation Anywhere?
RPA platforms also operate at the UI level, which makes them closer in kind to Clone than Zapier is. The differences are authoring surface, target audience, and price. RPA platforms require a studio with a flow-chart-style recorder, an orchestrator, and typically a six-figure annual enterprise contract. Clone is a chat window and a folder of plain-English ritual files, priced at $49/mo for a solo practice. The audience is the solo consultant, not the Fortune 500 automation CoE.
Is the client data really kept on my machine, or does it go through a cloud somewhere?
Principle one on lines 46-48 of architecture.tsx is the structural answer: 'Clone operates your desktop apps from your desktop. Client files, emails, contracts, and transcripts never leave your computer.' The agent reads what it sees on your screen, acts on what you tell it, and writes its memory to ~/.clone/memory on your local disk. The only thing that leaves your device is the LLM call used to parse your sentence and plan the steps, and that call does not carry client file contents.
What if a vendor updates their UI and breaks my ritual?
A UI change can break a ritual in Clone the same way an API change can break a Zapier Zap. The failure mode is different and usually more graceful: the agent sees the screen, does not recognize the field, and stops to ask you. You point at the new field once and the ritual picks up from there. On traditional BPA, a breaking API change is a ticket to the vendor and a wait for a connector update.
Can I use Clone and Zapier together?
Yes. Nothing in Clone's architecture stops you from running a Zap in parallel for the subset of apps Zapier covers well, while using Clone for the apps it does not. The two do not compete layer-for-layer, because one is an API orchestrator and the other drives the UI. Most Clone users phase out their Zapier plan over time because the overlap collapses once rituals start covering more apps.
When is a traditional cloud BPA platform a better pick than Clone?
When you orchestrate high-volume event-driven flows across a small set of well-connected SaaS apps (Salesforce, Slack, Workday), when your team already owns a Power Automate or Workato admin, or when you need to fire tens of thousands of events a day through vendor APIs. Clone is built for the opposite end: a solo or small consulting practice, a mixed stack with desktop and legacy tools, and a preference for plain English over a canvas.
Each page picks a different uncopyable property of Clone and defends it from a specific file in the repo.
Adjacent pages on the same thesis
A Business Process Automation Platform You Can Rewind
The fourth founding principle is reversibility. Clone logs every action at the UI level so a morning of work rolls back in one sentence.
A Business Process Automation Tool With No Graph Editor. On Purpose.
Every BPA tool ships a canvas as its main input surface. Clone shipped without one. The config surface is a chat window and a folder of markdown rituals.
Business Process Automation Solution, Evaluated by the Day 1 Integration Test
Most BPA solutions ask for a connector catalog, a BPMN diagram, or an RPA recording before they do a single hour of real work. Clone asks for one sentence.
Zero connectors. Works on every app on your screen. $49/mo, 21-day free trial.
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