# Caddy vs IronClaw > IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to Caddy's 16.7 (F) for proactive personal assistants. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side. - Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw - Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw.md (~3,350 tokens) - Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts) - JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-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 Caddy's 16.7 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do proactive personal assistants. - Caddy: grade F, 16.7/100, rank #996 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/caddy-app.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/caddy-app.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 ### Caddy (F) Good for: People who want a free assistant in iMessage or RCS that watches mail, calendars and work tools and asks before acting. 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 10 - Schema & documentation, 74 against 10 - Agent ergonomics, 69 against 0 - Security & auth, 66 against 0 - Payments & pricing, 60 against 30 - Maintenance & community, 74 against 55 - Transparency & trust, 75 against 52 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 | Caddy | IronClaw | Edge | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 10 | 67 | IronClaw +57 | | 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) | 0 | 66 | IronClaw +66 | | Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | IronClaw +30 | | Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 74 | IronClaw +19 | | Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 75 | IronClaw +23 | | Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | | | **Total** | | **16.7 · F** | **66.7 · B** | | ## Facts side by side | Fact | Caddy | IronClaw | | --- | --- | --- | | Kind | Platform | Agent harness | | Vendor | Caddy Technologies Inc. | NEAR AI | | Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) | | Transports | | HTTP | | Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key | | Pricing | Free | Freemium | | x402 | no | no | | Licence | Closed service under Caddy's Terms of Service (Caddy Technologies Inc., last updated 27 April 2026). | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | | Read-only variant documented | yes | no | | llms.txt | yes | yes | | Last release | 2026-10-13 | 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 **Caddy.** Caddy is a free iMessage and RCS assistant in public beta that watches connected mail, calendars and work apps and asks before sending email or changing data. No outside agent can call it, and no status page, changelog or security contact was found, though its iOS app ships every week or two. **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 ### Caddy 1. Don't plan to call Caddy from another agent. It answers the owner's text messages, Siri and group chats it's added to. 2. Expect Caddy to ask the owner before it sends email or creates an invite. ### 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, Caddy or IronClaw? IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Caddy's 16.7 (F), and leads in every scored category. ### Are Caddy and IronClaw open source? No open-source release is listed for Caddy. IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0). ## For agents - This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw.min.md - Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "caddy-app", "b": "ironclaw"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare caddy-app ironclaw` - Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/caddy-app.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json ## Other comparisons with Caddy or IronClaw - [asaply vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-caddy-app.md) - [asaply vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Asmi vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-caddy-app.md) - [Asmi vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Boba vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-caddy-app.md) - [Boba vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Brea vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-caddy-app.md) - [Brea vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Caddy vs Del](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-del.md) - [Caddy vs HireAlpha](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-hirealpha.md) - [Caddy vs OpenInstinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-openinstinct.md) - [Caddy vs Orbits](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-orbits.md) - [Caddy vs Orchid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-orchid-ai.md) - [Caddy vs szn](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-szn.md) - [Caddy vs Tab](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-tab-bot.md) - [Caddy vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-zapia.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 Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-caddy-app.md) - [AstrBot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Boski vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-caddy-app.md) - [Boski vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-ironclaw.md) - [Caddy vs CowAgent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-cowagent.md) - [Caddy vs folk](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-folk-nozomio.md) - [Caddy vs GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-gaia.md) - [Caddy vs Gemini Spark](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-gemini-spark.md) - [Caddy vs Grok Bot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-grok-bot.md) - [Caddy vs Haven](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-haven.md) - [Caddy vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-hermes-agent.md) - [Caddy vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-instinct.md) - [Caddy vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-leon.md) - [Caddy vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-lindy.md) - [Caddy vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-nanobot.md) - [Caddy vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-nanoclaw.md) - [Caddy vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-openai-dots.md) - [Caddy vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-openclaw.md) - [Caddy vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-picoclaw.md) - [Caddy vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-poke.md) - [Caddy vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-qwenpaw.md) - [Caddy vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-town.md) - [Caddy vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-zeroclaw.md) - [Caddy vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-zo-computer.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) - [Caddy vs Natura tinyNature](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-natura.md) - [Caddy vs Pally](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-pally.md) - [Caddy vs Tomo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-tomo.md) - [Caddy vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-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) - [Caddy vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-talorys.md) - [IronClaw vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-talorys.md) ## Disclosure - Caddy 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.