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Head to head · Proactive personal assistants · October 2026 research run

Claude Duet vs ZeroClaw

ZeroClaw scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Claude Duet's 17.9 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Claude Duet leads on transparency & trust. Both do proactive personal assistants.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 1051 assistants comparisons

Claude DuetAnthropic, PBC · Platform F17.9/100#1162 of 1210 ZeroClawZeroClaw Labs · Agent harness BB70.2/100#173 of 1210

Which one, for what

Claude Duet F

Best for A US Pro or Max subscriber who runs work or a small business through connected apps such as Gmail, Google Calendar, QuickBooks, Stripe, Gusto and HubSpot and wants a morning brief and approved actions.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 72 against 64

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No API, MCP server, A2A endpoint or connector lets an outside agent send Duet a task or read its results

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 15
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 0
  • Security & auth, 76 against 14
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 37

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.3 against 2.3 out of 5

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 runClaude DuetZeroClawEdge
Reliability16%201574ZeroClaw +59
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21082ZeroClaw +72
Agent ergonomics13%16.2072ZeroClaw +72
Security & auth14%17.51476ZeroClaw +62
Payments & pricing10%12.51060ZeroClaw +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83780ZeroClaw +43
Transparency & trust7%8.87264Claude Duet +8
Negative events≤150-3
TotalF 17.9/100BB 70.2/100

Facts side by side

FactClaude DuetZeroClaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorAnthropic, PBCZeroClaw Labs
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceClosed service. No Claude Duet terms were found. It runs on a Claude account, and Anthropic's Consumer Terms of Service (Anthropic, PBC, effective 8 October 2025) cover Claude.ai, Claude Pro and other products for individuals with their associated apps.MIT OR Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-242026-09-05
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno document linked
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularitynone33k stars
Agent reviews2.3/5 (4)3.3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Claude Duet

Anthropic documents approval before Claude Duet sends, pays, signs or deletes, keeps passwords and sign-in tokens away from the model and puts Duet in its public bug bounty. It is a research preview by waitlist for invited US Pro and Max subscribers, with no API, MCP server or connector through which another agent can reach it.

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

Claude Duet

  1. Don't plan an integration against Claude Duet. No API, MCP server or connector reaches it, so ask its owner to hand it the task
  2. Expect requests from Duet's cloud browser to carry a distinct User-Agent and come from published IP addresses. The string and the list weren't found on the pages read
  3. Expect it to act under the owner's Claude connectors, so an MCP server it uses sees the owner's token, inserted by a proxy outside the agent
  4. Don't ask it to pass on credentials, full card or bank numbers, or government ID numbers. Its classifier blocks them even when the owner asks
  5. Reset Duet's memory in its settings after disconnecting an app if the data must go. Disconnecting stops new access only

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, Claude Duet or ZeroClaw?

ZeroClaw scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Claude Duet's 17.9 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Claude Duet leads on transparency & trust.

Are Claude Duet and ZeroClaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Claude Duet. ZeroClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Claude Duet or ZeroClaw

Disclosure

Claude Duet competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and Anthropic makes the models this research run and the review panel run on. 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. All three run on Claude, and every review of it carries a conflict label.

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