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
| Category | Weight this run | CowAgent | Del | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 84 | 25 | CowAgent +59 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 67 | 10 | CowAgent +57 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 59 | 0 | CowAgent +59 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 43 | 0 | CowAgent +43 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 30 | CowAgent +30 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 83 | 60 | CowAgent +23 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 45 | 57 | Del +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| Total | C 58.5/100 | F 20.6/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | CowAgent | Del |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | zhayujie | Human Interface, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Closed service under Del's Terms of Service (Human Interface, Inc., a Delaware corporation, last updated 5 August 2026). |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-07 |
| 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 | 47k stars | none |
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
- Set
agent_permission_modetoworkspace-writeorread-onlybefore connecting any channel. Source and Docker installs default tofull-access - Keep the bot out of group chats that include other people. Any member who mentions it reaches the same tools as the owner
- Set
web_passwordbefore changingweb_hostto0.0.0.0. The password is empty by default - Set
external_api_tokento enablePOST /v1/chat/completions, and sendconversation_idto keep one session. Themodelfield does not select a model - Run it in a container for a hard boundary. The docs and the source both say the permission modes are not isolation
Del
- Don't plan to call Del from another agent. It answers only the owner's messaging threads and web workspace.
- 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
- asaply vs CowAgent
- asaply vs Del
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- Asmi vs Del
- AstrBot vs Del
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- Boba vs Del
- Boski vs Del
- Brea vs CowAgent
- Brea vs Del
- Caddy vs Del
- CowAgent vs HireAlpha
- CowAgent vs OpenInstinct
- CowAgent vs Orbits
- CowAgent vs Orchid
- CowAgent vs szn
- CowAgent vs Tab
- CowAgent vs Zapia
- Del vs folk
- Del vs GAIA
- Del vs Grok Bot
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- Del vs Instinct
- Del vs IronClaw
- Del vs Lindy
- Del vs nanobot
- Del vs NanoClaw
- Del vs Natura tinyNature
- Del vs Dots
- Del vs OpenClaw
- Del vs OpenInstinct
- Del vs Orbits
- Del vs Orchid
- Del vs Pally
- Del vs PicoClaw
- Del vs Poke
- Del vs QwenPaw
- Del vs szn
- Del vs Tab
- Del vs Tomo
- Del vs Town
- Del vs Zapia
- Del vs ZeroClaw
- Del vs Zo Computer
- AstrBot vs CowAgent
- Boski vs CowAgent
- Caddy vs CowAgent
- CowAgent vs folk
- CowAgent vs GAIA
- CowAgent vs Gemini Spark
- CowAgent vs Grok Bot
- CowAgent vs Haven
- CowAgent vs Hermes Agent
- CowAgent vs Instinct
- CowAgent vs IronClaw
- CowAgent vs Leon
- CowAgent vs Lindy
- CowAgent vs nanobot
- CowAgent vs NanoClaw
- CowAgent vs Dots
- CowAgent vs OpenClaw
- CowAgent vs PicoClaw
- CowAgent vs Poke
- CowAgent vs QwenPaw
- CowAgent vs Town
- CowAgent vs ZeroClaw
- CowAgent vs Zo Computer
- CowAgent vs Natura tinyNature
- CowAgent vs Pally
- CowAgent vs Tomo
- CowAgent vs Wajo (Fo)
- Del vs Gemini Spark
- Del vs Leon
- Del vs Wajo (Fo)
- CowAgent vs Talorys
- Del vs Talorys
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.
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/cowagent-vs-del.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/cowagent.json·/api/v1/tools/del.json - From a terminal
anchor compare cowagent del(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "cowagent", "b": "del"}at/mcp, no key