# CowAgent vs IronClaw

> IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to CowAgent's 58.5 (C) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-ironclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-ironclaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-ironclaw.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-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: 2026-10-12

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against CowAgent's 58.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. CowAgent leads on reliability and maintenance & community. Both do assistant proactive.

- CowAgent: grade C, 58.5/100, rank #591 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cowagent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cowagent.json
- IronClaw: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #288 of 986. 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 190 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### CowAgent (C)

Good 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 67
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 74

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

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

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 67
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 59
- Security & auth, 66 against 43
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 45

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 | CowAgent | IronClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 84 | 67 | CowAgent +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 74 | IronClaw +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 69 | IronClaw +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 66 | IronClaw +23 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 74 | CowAgent +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 75 | IronClaw +30 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **58.5 · C** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | CowAgent | IronClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | zhayujie | NEAR AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 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 | 47k stars | 13k stars |

## 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.

**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

### 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

### 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, CowAgent or IronClaw?

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against CowAgent's 58.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. CowAgent leads on reliability and maintenance & community.

### Are CowAgent and IronClaw open source?

Yes. CowAgent is open source (MIT). IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with CowAgent or IronClaw

- [AstrBot vs CowAgent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-cowagent.md)
- [AstrBot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-gaia.md)
- [CowAgent vs Gemini Spark](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-gemini-spark.md)
- [CowAgent vs Grok Bot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-grok-bot.md)
- [CowAgent vs Haven](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-haven.md)
- [CowAgent vs Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-hermes-agent.md)
- [CowAgent vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-instinct.md)
- [CowAgent vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-leon.md)
- [CowAgent vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-lindy.md)
- [CowAgent vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-nanobot.md)
- [CowAgent vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [CowAgent vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-openclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-poke.md)
- [CowAgent vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-zo-computer.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 ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zo-computer.md)