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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

AstrBot vs Dots

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Dots leads on security & auth. 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 DotsOpenAI · Platform F28.3/100#973 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 3
  • Schema & documentation, 62 against 41
  • Agent ergonomics, 54 against 22
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 81 against 38
  • Transparency & trust, 40 against 31

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

Dots F

Best for A ChatGPT Pro or Enterprise user who wants ongoing work tracked across mail, documents, code and Slack with approval before sends.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 58 against 44

Watch for

Beta. The admin setting is labelled Use dots (Beta), access is rolling out gradually, and Teams access is an invite-only alpha

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAstrBotDotsEdge
Reliability16%20813AstrBot +78
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26241AstrBot +21
Agent ergonomics13%16.25422AstrBot +32
Security & auth14%17.54458Dots +14
Payments & pricing10%12.56010AstrBot +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88138AstrBot +43
Transparency & trust7%8.84031AstrBot +9
Negative events≤15-20
TotalC 58.8/100F 28.3/100

Facts side by side

FactAstrBotDots
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorAstrBotDevsOpenAI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0-or-laterProprietary hosted service. The governing terms were not read
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-272026-10-09
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 starsnone

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.

Dots

Actions that affect accounts or share information pass an automatic review, and custom rules can require approval or a hand-off. Dots is a beta on Pro plans from $100 a month, and no status page, terms, privacy policy or way to delete individual saved notes was found in the pages we could read.

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

Dots

  1. Say what may be sent. Asking a dot to draft replies does not permit sending them, and an action outside a stated scope needs another decision
  2. Stop three things separately. Pause stops the main task only, delegated tasks stop in Activity and recurring tasks in Scheduled, and completed actions are not undone
  3. Connect each thing separately. A messaging channel grants no access to an inbox, an app or a computer
  4. Sign out of websites and disconnect apps yourself when removing access. Revoking dots access or disconnecting an app does not delete information already obtained
  5. Keep the connected computer online with the ChatGPT app open for local work. Only one personal computer can be connected at a time

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, AstrBot or Dots?

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Dots leads on security & auth.

Are AstrBot and Dots open source?

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

Other comparisons with AstrBot or Dots

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