# AstrBot vs PicoClaw

> AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) to PicoClaw's 46.1 (D) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-picoclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-picoclaw.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-picoclaw.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-picoclaw.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

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against PicoClaw's 46.1 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. PicoClaw leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and transparency & trust. 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
- PicoClaw: grade D, 46.1/100, rank #879 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/picoclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/picoclaw.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 54
- Schema & documentation, 62 against 51
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 22

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

### PicoClaw (D)

Good for: A person who wants a chat-app assistant on a cheap Linux board, an old Android phone or a home server, with reminders, web search and file memory, and who accepts running software its maker calls pre-production.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 66 against 54
- Security & auth, 51 against 44
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 40

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

Watch for: No commit on main since 19 August 2026 and no release since v0.3.1 on 3 July 2026. An issue of 6 October calls the repository unmaintained, with no reply


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AstrBot | PicoClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 81 | 54 | AstrBot +27 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 51 | AstrBot +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 66 | PicoClaw +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 51 | PicoClaw +7 |
| 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 | 22 | AstrBot +59 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 40 | 56 | PicoClaw +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -7 | |
| **Total** | | **58.8 · C** | **46.1 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AstrBot | PicoClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | AstrBotDevs | Sipeed |
| 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 | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-07-03 |
| 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 | 30k 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.

**PicoClaw.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with 19 documented chat channels, scheduled and heartbeat tasks, and local file memory. The repository has had no commit since 19 August 2026 and no release since 3 July, and 15 CVEs are listed against it with no advisory or security policy from the project.

## 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

### PicoClaw

1. Set `allow_from` to the owner's user ID on every channel before starting the gateway. An empty list accepts messages from anyone
2. Set `tools.exec.allow_remote` to `false` unless chats must run shell commands. The shipped default is `true`, whatever docs/guides/configuration.md says
3. Set `isolation.enabled` to `true` on Linux (needs `bwrap`) or run in a container. The deny patterns do not inspect child processes
4. Use `PICOCLAW_KEY_PASSPHRASE` for credential encryption. One docs page names `PICOCLAW_CREDENTIAL_PASSPHRASE`, which the source does not read
5. Treat the README's ClawdChat line (read a remote skill file and follow it) as untrusted third-party instructions

## Questions

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

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against PicoClaw's 46.1 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. PicoClaw leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Are AstrBot and PicoClaw open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with AstrBot or PicoClaw

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