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Cooper Email vs Selvedge
Short answer: Pick Cooper Email if you want API inboxes for AI agents; pick Selvedge if you want persistent decision memory for AI coding agents. Cooper Email has a free plan, paid from $12/month; Selvedge is free.
Cooper EmailGive every AI agent its own inbox
SelvedgeYour coding agent's memory for decisions and dead endsWhich to pick
Pick Cooper Email if you want…
- API inboxes for AI agents
- Integrations with Claude, ChatGPT or VS Code (on Cooper Email's list, not Selvedge's)
Pick Selvedge if you want…
- Persistent decision memory for AI coding agents
- Agent memory
- A free, open-source tool
- Integrations with Claude Code, Codex or Copilot (on Selvedge's list, not Cooper Email's)
Side by side
- What it is
- Cooper Email:Cooper Email provides an API that gives AI agents a real email inbox (and optional phone number) with webhooks and full-text search.
- Selvedge:Selvedge keeps project decisions, rejected approaches, and their reasons available to your next AI coding session through MCP and the CLI.
- Best for
- Cooper Email:API inboxes for AI agents
- Selvedge:Persistent decision memory for AI coding agents
- Who it’s for
- Cooper Email:Developers building autonomous AI agents that need email or SMS communication.
- Selvedge:Developers using AI coding assistants who need to track and reuse decision context.
- Pricing
- Cooper Email:Freemium
- Selvedge:Free
- Starting price
- Cooper Email:$12/month (Starter)
- Selvedge:Free
- Free plan or trial
- Cooper Email:Free plan (Free)
- Selvedge:Free to use
- Plans
- Cooper Email:Free $0 · Starter $12/mo per month · Pro $99/mo per month
- Selvedge:—
- Open source
- Cooper Email:Yes, 0 GitHub stars
- Selvedge:Yes, 24 GitHub stars
- Works with
- Cooper Email:Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Codex CLI
- Selvedge:Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Windsurf
Cooper Email features
- One-click inbox creation. POST /onboard returns an API key and a unique @cooperemail.com address in a single request.
- Signed inbound webhooks. Incoming email arrives as a signed webhook for immediate processing by the agent.
- Full-text searchable mail. All messages are indexed with SQLite FTS5, searchable via GET /search.
- Custom domains. Starter and Pro plans support custom domains with automatic DNS when using Cloudflare.
- Phone numbers & SMS. Buy US numbers ($3/mo each) to receive texts stored as inbox messages with webhook alerts.
- Hosted MCP integration. Connect agents via the hosted MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other tools.
Selvedge features
- Local SQLite storage. Decisions are saved in a project-local .selvedge/selvedge.db file without external services.
- Agent-agnostic integration. Connects to Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI and Windsurf through MCP. Setup and lifecycle-hook support vary by client.
- Explicit decision recording. Save what was decided, which approaches were rejected, why, and the conditions for reconsidering them.
- CLI and MCP access. Retrieve stored decisions through a Python CLI or MCP calls in new sessions.
- Zero-account, open source. MIT-licensed, no subscription, and makes no LLM calls itself.
- Project-portable database. Carry the SQLite file to another machine or export a readable decision log.
Cooper Email vs Selvedge FAQ
What is the difference between Cooper Email and Selvedge?+
Selvedge offers memory storage for agents, whereas Cooper Email handles email communication.
Should I use Cooper Email or Selvedge?+
Pick Cooper Email if you want API inboxes for AI agents or integrations with Claude, ChatGPT or VS Code (on Cooper Email's list, not Selvedge's). Pick Selvedge if you want persistent decision memory for AI coding agents, agent memory or a free, open-source tool.
Is Cooper Email or Selvedge free?+
Cooper Email has a free plan; paid plans start at $12/month (Starter). Selvedge is free.
Which is cheaper, Cooper Email or Selvedge?+
Selvedge is free, so it costs less. Cooper Email starts at $12/month (Starter).
Is Cooper Email or Selvedge open source?+
Yes, both are open source: Cooper Email (cooper-email/cooper-email on GitHub, MIT license) and Selvedge (masondelan/selvedge on GitHub, MIT license).
Do Cooper Email and Selvedge integrate with the same tools?+
Partly. Both list Cursor. Cooper Email also lists Claude, ChatGPT, VS Code and Codex CLI; Selvedge also lists Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini CLI and 1 more.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.