# Atticus vs GAIA

> GAIA scores 49.5 (D) to Atticus's 42.9 (E) for assistants that remember you. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atticus-vs-gaia
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atticus-vs-gaia.md (~3,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atticus-vs-gaia.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atticus-vs-gaia.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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

GAIA scores 49.5 (D) on agent readiness against Atticus's 42.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Atticus leads on payments & pricing. Both do assistants that remember you.

- Atticus: grade E, 42.9/100, rank #974 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/atticus.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/atticus.json
- GAIA: grade D, 49.5/100, rank #858 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gaia.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gaia.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 875 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Atticus (E)

Good for: A person on macOS 26 with a Claude Pro or Max plan who wants voice control of apps, windows, files and the browser.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source
- No incidents deducted, where GAIA loses 5 points for them

Watch for: No API, MCP server or documented command an outside agent can call

### GAIA (D)

Good for: It suits one person who wants mail triage, meeting briefs, todos and scheduled workflows from one assistant reachable on WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or iMessage, and who wants to read the source.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 51 against 15
- Agent ergonomics, 54 against 9
- Security & auth, 54 against 49
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 51

Watch for: The default approval mode in the source is `always_allow`, commented as nothing gated, while the privacy policy and the 26 August release notes say destructive actions wait for approval.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Atticus | GAIA | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 67 | Atticus +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 15 | 51 | GAIA +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 9 | 54 | GAIA +45 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 54 | GAIA +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | Atticus +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 78 | GAIA +27 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 60 | GAIA +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **42.9 · E** | **49.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Atticus | GAIA |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Platform |
| Vendor | SaarthurR (Saarth Ranka) | The Experience Company |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | OAuth |
| Pricing | Your plan | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-14 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-07 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 163 stars | 308 stars |

## Verdicts

**Atticus.** Atticus runs a person's Mac by voice on their existing Claude or Devin plan, with a sandboxed safe mode and a local log of every command. It has no API, MCP server or documented command for another agent, it is five days old, and it rebuilds itself from the main branch every six hours by default.

**GAIA.** GAIA's source is public, so its approval gate, memory store and token handling can be read. Three approval modes and per-tool overrides exist, but the default mode in the source runs every action unasked, which the privacy policy and release notes do not say. Pro costs $30 a month and self-hosting is limited to noncommercial use.

## Before you call either

### Atticus

1. Don't plan to call Atticus from another agent. It takes requests only from its own shortcut and typing box
2. If a user runs Atticus beside you, expect it to move windows and type into apps on the same Mac
3. Point a user who wants pinned versions to Settings > About & Updates to turn off self-update

### GAIA

1. Set Settings > Approvals to Always ask or Auto before connecting mail. The default in the source runs every action, including send and delete, without asking.
2. Expect no public API on the hosted service. The backend turns off its OpenAPI document in production, so reach GAIA through its apps, bots or CLI.
3. Check the plan before relying on the hosted service. The README and docs describe a Free plan, and the pricing page says GAIA is a paid product.
4. For self-hosting, prepare Docker, Node.js 20, a WorkOS account and a model key first, and confirm the use is noncommercial under the licence.
5. Add outside tools as MCP servers by URL on the Integrations page. GAIA asks before adding a server in every approval mode.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Atticus or GAIA?

GAIA scores 49.5 (D) on agent readiness against Atticus's 42.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Atticus leads on payments & pricing.

### Are Atticus and GAIA open source?

Atticus is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for GAIA.


## For agents

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

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