Head to head · Assistants that remember you · October 2026 research run

Atticus vs ZeroClaw

ZeroClaw scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Atticus's 42.9 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistants that remember you.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 875 assistants comparisons

Which one, for what

Atticus E

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

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where ZeroClaw loses 3 points for them

Watch for

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

ZeroClaw BB

Best for One person who wants an assistant on their own hardware that answers on Telegram, Discord, Matrix or email, asks before it writes or runs commands, and works with a local model.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 74 against 68
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 15
  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 9
  • Security & auth, 76 against 49
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 51
  • Transparency & trust, 64 against 56

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

The docs state that command execution is not audited. [security.audit] records certificate events only, and tool receipts are opt-in and not durable

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAtticusZeroClawEdge
Reliability16%206874ZeroClaw +6
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21582ZeroClaw +67
Agent ergonomics13%16.2972ZeroClaw +63
Security & auth14%17.54976ZeroClaw +27
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85180ZeroClaw +29
Transparency & trust7%8.85664ZeroClaw +8
Negative events≤150-3
TotalE 42.9/100BB 70.2/100

Facts side by side

FactAtticusZeroClaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorSaarthurR (Saarth Ranka)ZeroClaw Labs
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingYour planFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT OR Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-142026-09-05
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity163 stars33k 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.

ZeroClaw

Supervised autonomy is the default, so tools outside a short read-only list wait for the owner's approval, and secrets are encrypted in the config file. The docs state that command execution is not written to an audit log, and the project publishes no privacy policy or terms.

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

ZeroClaw

  1. Keep [risk_profiles.<alias>] level = "supervised". full runs every tool not listed in always_ask, and the YOLO preset removes the sandbox and path rules too
  2. Add sending and account tools such as send_via, google_workspace and http_request to always_ask so a session-level Always grant cannot skip the prompt
  3. List senders in [peer_groups.<name>] external_peers. ["*"] accepts anyone on that channel
  4. Set [web_fetch].allowed_domains and [http_request].allowed_domains. Fetches run unprompted and the OS sandbox does not block egress
  5. Run one-shot tasks with zeroclaw agent -a <alias> -m "<task>". A cron or webhook turn has no prompt, so shell calls fall to the command policy

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Atticus or ZeroClaw?

ZeroClaw scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Atticus's 42.9 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Atticus and ZeroClaw open source?

Yes. Atticus is open source (MIT). ZeroClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Atticus or ZeroClaw

Machine-readable

For companies

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