# Caddy vs OpenClaw

> OpenClaw scores 67.1 (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-openclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-openclaw.md (~3,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-openclaw.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-openclaw.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: 2026-10-14

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (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 #1054 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/caddy-app.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/caddy-app.json
- OpenClaw: grade B, 67.1/100, rank #278 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openclaw.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.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where OpenClaw loses 8 points for them

Watch for: No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.

### OpenClaw (B)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with their choice of model and files they can read and delete.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 10
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 10
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 0
- Security & auth, 74 against 0
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 55
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 52

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: Without configuration the default is full access. Host exec runs with no approval and sandboxing is off


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Caddy | OpenClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 10 | 75 | OpenClaw +65 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 10 | 84 | OpenClaw +74 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 0 | 77 | OpenClaw +77 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 0 | 74 | OpenClaw +74 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | OpenClaw +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 86 | OpenClaw +31 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 68 | OpenClaw +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **16.7 · F** | **67.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Caddy | OpenClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Caddy Technologies Inc. | OpenClaw Foundation |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed service under Caddy's Terms of Service (Caddy Technologies Inc., last updated 27 April 2026). | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-12 |
| Terms last updated |  | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | no 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 |  |  |
| Popularity | none | 392k 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.

**OpenClaw.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with state, memory and credentials kept on the owner's machine and no paid tier. A fresh install runs tools on the host with full access, no approval prompt and no sandbox, and the project has published 722 security advisories since January 2026, 14 of them critical.

## 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.

### OpenClaw

1. Set a session permission mode of `guarded` or `workspace`, or `tools.exec.mode`, before connecting mail. The default runs host commands without approval
2. Turn on `agents.defaults.sandbox` for any agent that reads mail, web pages or attachments. Sandboxing is off by default
3. Set `tools.message.crossContext.allowAcrossProviders` and `allowWithinProvider` to `false` to confine sends to the current conversation
4. Route incoming mail to a restricted reader agent, as the IMAP and Gmail guides show, and deny `gateway`, `cron`, `sessions_spawn` and `sessions_send` for it
5. Run `openclaw security audit` after setup, and treat the Gateway token as an owner credential. `POST /tools/invoke` accepts it with full operator access

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Caddy or OpenClaw?

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Caddy's 16.7 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Caddy and OpenClaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Caddy. OpenClaw is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Caddy or OpenClaw

- [asaply vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-caddy-app.md)
- [asaply vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Asmi vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-caddy-app.md)
- [Asmi vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Boba vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-caddy-app.md)
- [Boba vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Brea vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-caddy-app.md)
- [Brea vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-openclaw.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 OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/del-vs-openclaw.md)
- [HireAlpha vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hirealpha-vs-openclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs OpenInstinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-openinstinct.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Orbits](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-orbits.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Orchid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-orchid-ai.md)
- [OpenClaw vs szn](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-szn.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Tab](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-tab-bot.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-zapia.md)
- [AstrBot vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-caddy-app.md)
- [AstrBot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Boski vs Caddy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-caddy-app.md)
- [Boski vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-openclaw.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 IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-ironclaw.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 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 OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-openclaw.md)
- [folk vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/folk-nozomio-vs-openclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Grok Bot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Haven vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-openclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Leon vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/leon-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Lindy vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-openclaw.md)
- [nanobot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [NanoClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Dots vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-dots-vs-openclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [OpenClaw vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-town.md)
- [OpenClaw vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-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)
- [Natura tinyNature vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/natura-vs-openclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Pally](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-pally.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Tomo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-tomo.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-wajo.md)
- [Caddy vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-talorys.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-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.