Head to head · Assistants reached by message · October 2026 research run

CowAgent vs Del

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Del's 20.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Del leads on transparency & trust. Both do assistants reached by message.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 834 assistants comparisons

Which one, for what

CowAgent C

Best for One technical owner who wants an assistant on WeChat, Feishu, DingTalk, Telegram, Slack or Discord with memory in local files and a choice of Chinese and Western model providers.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 84 against 25
  • Schema & documentation, 67 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 59 against 0
  • Security & auth, 43 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 60

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

Source and Docker installs default to full-access, and no mode asks the owner before a shell command, a file send or an MCP call

Del F

Best for People who want tasks, notes, reminders and Gmail handled by text on the channel they already use.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 57 against 45

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where CowAgent loses 5 points for them

Watch for

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCowAgentDelEdge
Reliability16%208425CowAgent +59
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26710CowAgent +57
Agent ergonomics13%16.2590CowAgent +59
Security & auth14%17.5430CowAgent +43
Payments & pricing10%12.56030CowAgent +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88360CowAgent +23
Transparency & trust7%8.84557Del +12
Negative events≤15-50
TotalC 58.5/100F 20.6/100

Facts side by side

FactCowAgentDel
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorzhayujieHuman Interface, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceMITClosed service under Del's Terms of Service (Human Interface, Inc., a Delaware corporation, last updated 5 August 2026).
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-302026-10-07
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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
Popularity47k starsnone

Verdicts

CowAgent

MIT software with seven releases in 90 days, memory kept as plain files in the owner's workspace and three per-session permission modes. Source and Docker installs default to full-access, no action asks for approval, and an open report of 31 July 2026 says group members could reach the owner's files through the bot.

Del

Del is a hosted texting assistant and task workspace across iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, Discord and Slack, with a near-daily public changelog and a card-free 14-day trial. No outside agent can call it, no status page or security contact was found, and recent updates let some email actions skip approval.

Before you call either

CowAgent

  1. Set agent_permission_mode to workspace-write or read-only before connecting any channel. Source and Docker installs default to full-access
  2. Keep the bot out of group chats that include other people. Any member who mentions it reaches the same tools as the owner
  3. Set web_password before changing web_host to 0.0.0.0. The password is empty by default
  4. Set external_api_token to enable POST /v1/chat/completions, and send conversation_id to keep one session. The model field does not select a model
  5. Run it in a container for a hard boundary. The docs and the source both say the permission modes are not isolation

Del

  1. Don't plan to call Del from another agent. It answers only the owner's messaging threads and web workspace.
  2. Tell the owner web browsing tasks are limited to five a month on Standard and unlimited on Pro.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, CowAgent or Del?

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Del's 20.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Del leads on transparency & trust.

Are CowAgent and Del open source?

CowAgent is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Del.

Other comparisons with CowAgent or Del

Disclosure

Del 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.

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