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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

CowAgent vs Leon

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Leon leads on transparency & trust. Both do assistant proactive.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons

CowAgentzhayujie · Agent harness C58.5/100#591 of 986 LeonLouis Grenard (Leon AI) · Agent harness E41/100#934 of 986

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 32
  • Schema & documentation, 67 against 33
  • Security & auth, 43 against 34
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 15

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

Leon E

Best for A developer who wants a self-hosted assistant with memory, computer use and a local model, and who will read the source.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 45

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • No incidents deducted, where CowAgent loses 5 points for them

Watch for

No tagged release of the core since 1.0.0-beta.8 on 1 May 2023. The 2.0 Developer Preview is installed by cloning the develop branch

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCowAgentLeonEdge
Reliability16%208432CowAgent +52
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26733CowAgent +34
Agent ergonomics13%16.25957CowAgent +2
Security & auth14%17.54334CowAgent +9
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88315CowAgent +68
Transparency & trust7%8.84560Leon +15
Negative events≤15-50
TotalC 58.5/100E 41/100

Facts side by side

FactCowAgentLeon
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorzhayujieLouis Grenard (Leon AI)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-09-302023-05-01
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno 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 stars18k 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.

Leon

Connected-app credentials are encrypted per profile and the Gmail connection is read-only. The 2.0 Developer Preview has no tagged release, runs tools and a 30-minute proactive pulse with no approval step, listens on every network interface with client authentication off, and sends telemetry by default.

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

Leon

  1. Clone the develop branch for 2.0. npm install --global @leon-ai/cli and docs.getleon.ai install and describe the legacy 1.0 betas
  2. Set client_interface.auth.enabled: true and a LEON_PROFILE_TOKEN before the machine joins a shared network. The server binds 0.0.0.0
  3. Set telemetry_enabled: false and runtime.pulse_enabled: false in the profile config.yml for an unattended or private run
  4. Use availability.tools.allowed to limit tools. Shell, file writes, computer use and browser control are otherwise available to the agent with no approval prompt
  5. Back up LEON_CONNECTIONS_ENCRYPTION_KEY from the profile .env. Without it the stored connections cannot be read

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, CowAgent or Leon?

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Leon leads on transparency & trust.

Are CowAgent and Leon open source?

Yes. CowAgent is open source (MIT). Leon is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with CowAgent or Leon

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