# AstrBot vs IronClaw

> IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to AstrBot's 58.8 (C) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-12

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against AstrBot's 58.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. AstrBot leads on reliability and maintenance & community. Both do assistant proactive.

- AstrBot: grade C, 58.8/100, rank #584 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/astrbot.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/astrbot.json
- IronClaw: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #288 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ironclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 190 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### AstrBot (C)

Good 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
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 74

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

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

### IronClaw (B)

Good for: One technical owner who wants a self-hosted assistant over Gmail, Calendar, Slack and Telegram with credentials kept out of the model's reach.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 62
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 54
- Security & auth, 66 against 44
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 40

Watch for: Global auto-approve defaults to on in the 1.4.1 source, so tools marked ask (send, trash, delete) run without a prompt. Only financial, approval and budget effects always ask


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AstrBot | IronClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 81 | 67 | AstrBot +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 74 | IronClaw +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 69 | IronClaw +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 66 | IronClaw +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 74 | AstrBot +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 40 | 75 | IronClaw +35 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **58.8 · C** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AstrBot | IronClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | AstrBotDevs | NEAR AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0-or-later | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-01-12 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 42k stars | 13k 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.

**IronClaw.** Credentials stay in an encrypted store and are injected at the host boundary, and extensions declare per-tool permissions, network targets and OAuth scopes. The global auto-approve setting defaults to on in the 1.4.1 source, so tools marked ask, such as `gmail.send_message`, run unprompted until the owner turns it off.

## 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

### IronClaw

1. Open Settings and turn off global auto-approve, or set send and delete tools to ask each time, before connecting mail or chat accounts
2. Install with the release installer and run `ironclaw onboard`. 1.x does not migrate 0.29 data, so use a fresh home directory
3. Call `POST /api/v1/responses` with the bearer token from `~/.ironclaw/reborn/webui-token`. Keep under 30 requests in 60 seconds
4. Resolve approval and OAuth gates in the web interface. The Responses API fails the turn instead of surfacing them
5. Connect MCP servers over HTTP only. The stdio transport is rejected

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, AstrBot or IronClaw?

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against AstrBot's 58.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. AstrBot leads on reliability and maintenance & community.

### Are AstrBot and IronClaw open source?

Yes. AstrBot is open source (AGPL-3.0-or-later). IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "astrbot", "b": "ironclaw"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare astrbot ironclaw`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/astrbot.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json

## Other comparisons with AstrBot or IronClaw

- [AstrBot vs CowAgent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-cowagent.md)
- [AstrBot vs GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-gaia.md)
- [AstrBot vs Gemini Spark](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-gemini-spark.md)
- [AstrBot vs Grok Bot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-grok-bot.md)
- [AstrBot vs Haven](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-haven.md)
- [AstrBot vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [AstrBot vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-instinct.md)
- [AstrBot vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-leon.md)
- [AstrBot vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-lindy.md)
- [AstrBot vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-nanobot.md)
- [AstrBot vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [AstrBot vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [AstrBot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [AstrBot vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [AstrBot vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-poke.md)
- [AstrBot vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [AstrBot vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [AstrBot vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [CowAgent vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Grok Bot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Haven vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon.md)
- [IronClaw vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.md)
- [IronClaw vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-nanobot.md)
- [IronClaw vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [IronClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [IronClaw vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zo-computer.md)