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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

CowAgent vs Poke

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Poke 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 PokeThe Interaction Company of California Inc. · Platform F37.6/100#955 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 51
  • Schema & documentation, 67 against 42
  • Agent ergonomics, 59 against 30
  • Security & auth, 43 against 24
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 31

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • 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

Poke F

Best for One person who wants an assistant in their text messages that reads and drafts mail, manages a calendar and reaches other apps through MCP.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 58 against 45

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No documented setting for which actions need approval before Poke sends, deletes or spends. Release notes mention email draft approval only in passing

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCowAgentPokeEdge
Reliability16%208451CowAgent +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26742CowAgent +25
Agent ergonomics13%16.25930CowAgent +29
Security & auth14%17.54324CowAgent +19
Payments & pricing10%12.56030CowAgent +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88331CowAgent +52
Transparency & trust7%8.84558Poke +13
Negative events≤15-50
TotalC 58.5/100F 37.6/100

Facts side by side

FactCowAgentPoke
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorzhayujieThe Interaction Company of California Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The poke npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-302026-06-25
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-03-17
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-09-11
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
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.

Poke

Hosted assistant that answers in Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS and acts in Gmail, Outlook, calendars and MCP servers. Plan prices and a status page are public. No approval settings, credential storage, model providers or retention periods are documented, and customer content trains models unless Maximum Privacy is selected.

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

Poke

  1. POST JSON to https://poke.com/api/v1/inbound/api-message with a Bearer key from Kitchen. Legacy pk_ keys work only on the deprecated /api/v1/inbound-sms/webhook
  2. Expect only {"success": true} back. Poke's answer goes to the owner's message thread, not to the caller
  3. Do not retry a POST blindly. No idempotency key is documented, and a repeated message may make Poke act twice
  4. Treat an API key as full access to the owner's mail, calendar and integrations. Create one key per automation and revoke it when done
  5. Avoid the prefilled integration link with apiKey in the query string for real secrets. Enter the key in the form or use npx poke@latest mcp add -k

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, CowAgent or Poke?

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on transparency & trust.

Are CowAgent and Poke open source?

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

Other comparisons with CowAgent or Poke

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