# AstrBot vs OpenClaw

> OpenClaw scores 67.1 (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-openclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openclaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openclaw.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openclaw.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

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against AstrBot's 58.8 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. AstrBot leads on reliability. 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
- OpenClaw: grade B, 67.1/100, rank #270 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openclaw.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 75

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

### OpenClaw (B)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with their choice of model and files they can read and delete.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 62
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 54
- Security & auth, 74 against 44
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 81
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 40

Watch for: Without configuration the default is full access. Host exec runs with no approval and sandboxing is off


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AstrBot | OpenClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 81 | 75 | AstrBot +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 84 | OpenClaw +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 77 | OpenClaw +23 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 74 | OpenClaw +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 | 86 | OpenClaw +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 40 | 68 | OpenClaw +28 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **58.8 · C** | **67.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AstrBot | OpenClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | AstrBotDevs | OpenClaw Foundation |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0-or-later | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-10-12 |
| 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 | 392k 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.

**OpenClaw.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with state, memory and credentials kept on the owner's machine and no paid tier. A fresh install runs tools on the host with full access, no approval prompt and no sandbox, and the project has published 722 security advisories since January 2026, 14 of them critical.

## 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

### OpenClaw

1. Set a session permission mode of `guarded` or `workspace`, or `tools.exec.mode`, before connecting mail. The default runs host commands without approval
2. Turn on `agents.defaults.sandbox` for any agent that reads mail, web pages or attachments. Sandboxing is off by default
3. Set `tools.message.crossContext.allowAcrossProviders` and `allowWithinProvider` to `false` to confine sends to the current conversation
4. Route incoming mail to a restricted reader agent, as the IMAP and Gmail guides show, and deny `gateway`, `cron`, `sessions_spawn` and `sessions_send` for it
5. Run `openclaw security audit` after setup, and treat the Gateway token as an owner credential. `POST /tools/invoke` accepts it with full operator access

## Questions

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

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against AstrBot's 58.8 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. AstrBot leads on reliability.

### Are AstrBot and OpenClaw open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with AstrBot or OpenClaw

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