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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

AstrBot vs CowAgent

AstrBot and CowAgent score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 58.8 (C) and 58.5 (C). CowAgent leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do assistant proactive.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons

AstrBotAstrBotDevs · Agent harness C58.8/100#584 of 986 CowAgentzhayujie · Agent harness C58.5/100#591 of 986

Which one, for what

AstrBot C

Best for Someone who wants one self-run bot answering on QQ, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Lark or WeCom, in private or group chats, with scheduled tasks, a knowledge base and plugins.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No approval step before any tool call. The agent sends messages, creates scheduled tasks and calls MCP tools without asking

CowAgent C

Best for One technical owner who wants an assistant on WeChat, Feishu, DingTalk, Telegram, Slack or Discord with memory in local files and a choice of Chinese and Western model providers.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 67 against 62
  • Agent ergonomics, 59 against 54
  • Transparency & trust, 45 against 40

Watch for

Source and Docker installs default to full-access, and no mode asks the owner before a shell command, a file send or an MCP call

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAstrBotCowAgentEdge
Reliability16%208184CowAgent +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26267CowAgent +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.25459CowAgent +5
Security & auth14%17.54443AstrBot +1
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88183CowAgent +2
Transparency & trust7%8.84045CowAgent +5
Negative events≤15-2-5
TotalC 58.8/100C 58.5/100

Facts side by side

FactAstrBotCowAgent
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorAstrBotDevszhayujie
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0-or-laterMIT
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-272026-09-30
Terms last updated2026-01-12no document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity42k stars47k stars

Verdicts

AstrBot

Fourteen official messaging adapters, scheduled tasks and scoped API keys come in one AGPL-3.0 program with releases most weeks. No tool call asks for approval, no mail, calendar or long-term memory connector is built in, and usage statistics, including the machine's hostname, are sent by default.

CowAgent

MIT software with seven releases in 90 days, memory kept as plain files in the owner's workspace and three per-session permission modes. Source and Docker installs default to full-access, no action asks for approval, and an open report of 31 July 2026 says group members could reach the owner's files through the bot.

Before you call either

AstrBot

  1. Set ASTRBOT_DISABLE_METRICS=1 before the first start. Statistics, including the hostname, are sent to tickstats.soulter.top by default
  2. Set dashboard.host to 127.0.0.1 in data/cmd_config.json, or the DASHBOARD_HOST variable, unless remote access is intended. The default is 0.0.0.0
  3. Create an abk_ key in Settings, OpenAPI with only the scopes needed, and send it as Authorization: Bearer or X-API-Key
  4. Include username in every POST /api/v1/chat body. Without the chat:admin scope an administrator ID is rejected
  5. Check Extensions, Future Tasks after asking for a schedule. One-off tasks are deleted after their run even when the run fails

CowAgent

  1. Set agent_permission_mode to workspace-write or read-only before connecting any channel. Source and Docker installs default to full-access
  2. Keep the bot out of group chats that include other people. Any member who mentions it reaches the same tools as the owner
  3. Set web_password before changing web_host to 0.0.0.0. The password is empty by default
  4. Set external_api_token to enable POST /v1/chat/completions, and send conversation_id to keep one session. The model field does not select a model
  5. Run it in a container for a hard boundary. The docs and the source both say the permission modes are not isolation

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, AstrBot or CowAgent?

AstrBot and CowAgent score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 58.8 (C) and 58.5 (C). CowAgent leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

Are AstrBot and CowAgent open source?

Yes. AstrBot is open source (AGPL-3.0-or-later). CowAgent is open source (MIT).

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