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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

AstrBot vs GAIA

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against GAIA's 49.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. GAIA leads on security & auth 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 GAIAThe Experience Company · Platform D49.5/100#813 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.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 81 against 67
  • Schema & documentation, 62 against 51
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

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

GAIA D

Best for It suits one person who wants mail triage, meeting briefs, todos and scheduled workflows from one assistant reachable on WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or iMessage, and who wants to read the source.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 54 against 44
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 40

Watch for

The default approval mode in the source is always_allow, commented as nothing gated, while the privacy policy and the 26 August release notes say destructive actions wait for approval.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAstrBotGAIAEdge
Reliability16%208167AstrBot +14
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26251AstrBot +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.25454even
Security & auth14%17.54454GAIA +10
Payments & pricing10%12.56020AstrBot +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88178AstrBot +3
Transparency & trust7%8.84060GAIA +20
Negative events≤15-2-5
TotalC 58.8/100D 49.5/100

Facts side by side

FactAstrBotGAIA
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorAstrBotDevsThe Experience Company
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0-or-laterPolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-272026-09-14
Terms last updated2026-01-122026-08-14
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-08-07
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity42k stars308 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.

GAIA

GAIA's source is public, so its approval gate, memory store and token handling can be read. Three approval modes and per-tool overrides exist, but the default mode in the source runs every action unasked, which the privacy policy and release notes do not say. Pro costs $30 a month and self-hosting is limited to noncommercial use.

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

GAIA

  1. Set Settings > Approvals to Always ask or Auto before connecting mail. The default in the source runs every action, including send and delete, without asking.
  2. Expect no public API on the hosted service. The backend turns off its OpenAPI document in production, so reach GAIA through its apps, bots or CLI.
  3. Check the plan before relying on the hosted service. The README and docs describe a Free plan, and the pricing page says GAIA is a paid product.
  4. For self-hosting, prepare Docker, Node.js 20, a WorkOS account and a model key first, and confirm the use is noncommercial under the licence.
  5. Add outside tools as MCP servers by URL on the Integrations page. GAIA asks before adding a server in every approval mode.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, AstrBot or GAIA?

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against GAIA's 49.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. GAIA leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

Are AstrBot and GAIA open source?

AstrBot is open source (AGPL-3.0-or-later). No open-source release is listed for GAIA.

Other comparisons with AstrBot or GAIA

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