# Brea vs IronClaw > IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to Brea's 12.9 (F) for assistants reached by message. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side. - Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw - Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw.md (~3,300 tokens) - Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts) - JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw.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: 2026-10-13 IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Brea's 12.9 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistants reached by message. - Brea: grade F, 12.9/100, rank #1001 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/brea.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/brea.json - IronClaw: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #288 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ironclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json - Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md - All 834 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md ## Which one, for what ### Brea (F) Good for: An iPhone user who wants an assistant across many apps and websites with per-action approval. Also in its favour: - Free to start without a card Watch for: No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent. ### IronClaw (B) Good for: One technical owner who wants a self-hosted assistant over Gmail, Calendar, Slack and Telegram with credentials kept out of the model's reach. Ahead on: - Reliability, 67 against 15 - Schema & documentation, 74 against 10 - Agent ergonomics, 69 against 0 - Security & auth, 66 against 7 - Payments & pricing, 60 against 20 - Maintenance & community, 74 against 4 - Transparency & trust, 75 against 48 Also in its favour: - Open source Watch for: Global auto-approve defaults to on in the 1.4.1 source, so tools marked ask (send, trash, delete) run without a prompt. Only financial, approval and budget effects always ask ## Score by category | Category | Weight | Brea | IronClaw | Edge | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 15 | 67 | IronClaw +52 | | Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 10 | 74 | IronClaw +64 | | Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 0 | 69 | IronClaw +69 | | Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 7 | 66 | IronClaw +59 | | Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | IronClaw +40 | | Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 4 | 74 | IronClaw +70 | | Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 48 | 75 | IronClaw +27 | | Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | | | **Total** | | **12.9 · F** | **66.7 · B** | | ## Facts side by side | Fact | Brea | IronClaw | | --- | --- | --- | | Kind | Platform | Agent harness | | Vendor | Brea AI LLC | NEAR AI | | Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) | | Transports | | HTTP | | Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key | | Pricing | Freemium | Freemium | | x402 | no | no | | Licence | Closed service under Brea's terms (Brea AI LLC, last updated 2 July 2026). | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | | Read-only variant documented | no | no | | llms.txt | yes | yes | | Last release | none | 2026-09-29 | | Terms last updated | | no document linked | | Privacy policy last updated | | no date given | | Customer content may train models | | | | Terms restrict automated access | | | | Terms restrict benchmarking | | | | Terms or service can change without notice | | | | Arbitration or class-action waiver | | | | Popularity | none | 13k stars | ## Verdicts **Brea.** Brea is an iMessage assistant with a free plan that needs no card, approval by reply before it sends, deletes or pays, and one-time Link cards for purchases. No outside agent can call it, paid prices sit inside the app, and no changelog or subprocessor list was found. **IronClaw.** Credentials stay in an encrypted store and are injected at the host boundary, and extensions declare per-tool permissions, network targets and OAuth scopes. The global auto-approve setting defaults to on in the 1.4.1 source, so tools marked ask, such as `gmail.send_message`, run unprompted until the owner turns it off. ## Before you call either ### Brea 1. Don't plan to call Brea from another agent. It answers only the owner's iMessage thread. 2. Tell the owner that replying ALWAYS stops Brea asking again for that action. ### IronClaw 1. Open Settings and turn off global auto-approve, or set send and delete tools to ask each time, before connecting mail or chat accounts 2. Install with the release installer and run `ironclaw onboard`. 1.x does not migrate 0.29 data, so use a fresh home directory 3. Call `POST /api/v1/responses` with the bearer token from `~/.ironclaw/reborn/webui-token`. Keep under 30 requests in 60 seconds 4. Resolve approval and OAuth gates in the web interface. The Responses API fails the turn instead of surfacing them 5. Connect MCP servers over HTTP only. The stdio transport is rejected ## Questions ### Which is better for AI agents, Brea or IronClaw? IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Brea's 12.9 (F), and leads in every scored category. ### Are Brea and IronClaw open source? No open-source release is listed for Brea. IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0). ## For agents - This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw.min.md - Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "brea", "b": "ironclaw"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare brea ironclaw` - Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/brea.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json ## Other comparisons with Brea or IronClaw - [asaply vs Brea](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-brea.md) - [asaply vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Asmi vs Brea](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-brea.md) - [Asmi vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-ironclaw.md) - [AstrBot vs Brea](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-brea.md) - [Boba vs Brea](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-brea.md) - [Boba vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Boski vs Brea](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-brea.md) - [Brea vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-caddy-app.md) - [Brea vs CowAgent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-cowagent.md) - [Brea vs Del](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-del.md) - [Brea vs folk](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-folk-nozomio.md) - [Brea vs GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-gaia.md) - [Brea vs Grok Bot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-grok-bot.md) - [Brea vs Haven](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-haven.md) - [Brea vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-hermes-agent.md) - [Brea vs HireAlpha](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-hirealpha.md) - [Brea vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-instinct.md) - [Brea vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-lindy.md) - [Brea vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-nanobot.md) - [Brea vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-nanoclaw.md) - [Brea vs Natura tinyNature](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-natura.md) - [Brea vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-openai-dots.md) - [Brea vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-openclaw.md) - [Brea vs OpenInstinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-openinstinct.md) - [Brea vs Orbits](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-orbits.md) - [Brea vs Orchid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-orchid-ai.md) - [Brea vs Pally](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-pally.md) - [Brea vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-picoclaw.md) - [Brea vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-poke.md) - [Brea vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-qwenpaw.md) - [Brea vs szn](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-szn.md) - [Brea vs Tab](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-tab-bot.md) - [Brea vs Tomo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-tomo.md) - [Brea vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-town.md) - [Brea vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-zapia.md) - [Brea vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-zeroclaw.md) - [Brea vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-zo-computer.md) - [Del vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/del-vs-ironclaw.md) - [HireAlpha vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hirealpha-vs-ironclaw.md) - [IronClaw vs OpenInstinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openinstinct.md) - [IronClaw vs Orbits](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-orbits.md) - [IronClaw vs Orchid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-orchid-ai.md) - [IronClaw vs szn](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-szn.md) - [IronClaw vs Tab](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-tab-bot.md) - [IronClaw vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zapia.md) - [AstrBot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Boski vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Caddy vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw.md) - [CowAgent vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-ironclaw.md) - [folk vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/folk-nozomio-vs-ironclaw.md) - [GAIA vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Gemini Spark vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Grok Bot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Haven vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Hermes Agent vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Instinct vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.md) - [IronClaw vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon.md) - [IronClaw vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.md) - [IronClaw vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-nanobot.md) - [IronClaw vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-nanoclaw.md) - [IronClaw vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openai-dots.md) - [IronClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.md) - [IronClaw vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-picoclaw.md) - [IronClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-poke.md) - [IronClaw vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md) - [IronClaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-town.md) - [IronClaw vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zeroclaw.md) - [IronClaw vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zo-computer.md) - [Brea vs Gemini Spark](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-gemini-spark.md) - [Brea vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-leon.md) - [Brea vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-wajo.md) - [IronClaw vs Natura tinyNature](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-natura.md) - [IronClaw vs Pally](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-pally.md) - [IronClaw vs Tomo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-tomo.md) - [IronClaw vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-wajo.md) - [Brea vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-talorys.md) - [IronClaw vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-talorys.md) ## Disclosure - Brea competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.