# AstrBot vs NanoClaw

> NanoClaw scores 68.3 (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-nanoclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-nanoclaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-nanoclaw.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-nanoclaw.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

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against AstrBot's 58.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. 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
- NanoClaw: grade B, 68.3/100, rank #229 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nanoclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nanoclaw.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.

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

### NanoClaw (B)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine, reachable from chat apps, with container isolation and scheduled tasks, and who is willing to keep a fork.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 62
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 54
- Security & auth, 74 against 44
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 40

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: The Claude provider runs with `permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions'`, so shell, file and web tools run inside the container with no prompt


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AstrBot | NanoClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 81 | 78 | AstrBot +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 82 | NanoClaw +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 70 | NanoClaw +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 74 | NanoClaw +30 |
| 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 | 78 | AstrBot +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 40 | 65 | NanoClaw +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **58.8 · C** | **68.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AstrBot | NanoClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | AstrBotDevs | NanoCo, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0-or-later | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-10-09 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-01-12 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| 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 | 31k 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.

**NanoClaw.** Each session runs in an unprivileged Docker container and API keys stay in a credential gateway on the host, so a manipulated agent cannot read them. Inside the container the agent runs with permission prompts off, network egress is open by default, and it can message any chat it is wired to without approval.

## 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

### NanoClaw

1. Install with `git clone` and `bash nanoclaw.sh`. There is no registry package, and setup needs Docker, Node 22 or later and a Claude or Codex credential
2. Set `NANOCLAW_EGRESS_LOCKDOWN=true` before giving an agent credentials or an audience of strangers. The default leaves egress open
3. Put chats with different audiences in separate agent groups. Every session of a group shares one read-write workspace and memory tree
4. Turn on per-request approval for a secret in the gateway when its use should wait for a person. It is off unless configured
5. On OneCLI installs, move the gateway to 1.42.0 by the upgrade guide before updating to 2026.10.0. The updater stops until that is done

## Questions

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

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against AstrBot's 58.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

### Are AstrBot and NanoClaw open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with AstrBot or NanoClaw

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