# AstrBot vs Poke

> AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) to Poke's 37.6 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-poke
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-poke.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-poke.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-poke.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 Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on 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
- Poke: grade F, 37.6/100, rank #955 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/poke.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/poke.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 51
- Schema & documentation, 62 against 42
- Agent ergonomics, 54 against 30
- Security & auth, 44 against 24
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 81 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

### Poke (F)

Good for: One person who wants an assistant in their text messages that reads and drafts mail, manages a calendar and reaches other apps through MCP.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 58 against 40

Watch for: No documented setting for which actions need approval before Poke sends, deletes or spends. Release notes mention email draft approval only in passing


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AstrBot | Poke | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 81 | 51 | AstrBot +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 42 | AstrBot +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 54 | 30 | AstrBot +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 24 | AstrBot +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | AstrBot +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 31 | AstrBot +50 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 40 | 58 | Poke +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **58.8 · C** | **37.6 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AstrBot | Poke |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | AstrBotDevs | The Interaction Company of California Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0-or-later | Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The `poke` npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-06-25 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-01-12 | 2026-03-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-11 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 42k stars | none |

## 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.

**Poke.** Hosted assistant that answers in Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS and acts in Gmail, Outlook, calendars and MCP servers. Plan prices and a status page are public. No approval settings, credential storage, model providers or retention periods are documented, and customer content trains models unless Maximum Privacy is selected.

## 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

### Poke

1. POST JSON to `https://poke.com/api/v1/inbound/api-message` with a Bearer key from Kitchen. Legacy `pk_` keys work only on the deprecated `/api/v1/inbound-sms/webhook`
2. Expect only `{"success": true}` back. Poke's answer goes to the owner's message thread, not to the caller
3. Do not retry a POST blindly. No idempotency key is documented, and a repeated message may make Poke act twice
4. Treat an API key as full access to the owner's mail, calendar and integrations. Create one key per automation and revoke it when done
5. Avoid the prefilled integration link with `apiKey` in the query string for real secrets. Enter the key in the form or use `npx poke@latest mcp add -k`

## Questions

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

AstrBot scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on transparency & trust.

### Are AstrBot and Poke open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with AstrBot or Poke

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