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Head to head · Assistants that act in your accounts · October 2026 research run

CowAgent vs Tomo

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Tomo's 13.1 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistants that act in your accounts.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 314 assistants comparisons

CowAgentzhayujie · Agent harness C58.5/100#592 of 993 TomoMapo Labs, Inc. · Platform F13.1/100#989 of 993

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 15
  • Schema & documentation, 67 against 0
  • Agent ergonomics, 59 against 0
  • Security & auth, 43 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 54

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

Tomo F

Best for People who want accountability, check-ins and reminders by text, including in group chats.

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 runCowAgentTomoEdge
Reliability16%208415CowAgent +69
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2670CowAgent +67
Agent ergonomics13%16.2590CowAgent +59
Security & auth14%17.5430CowAgent +43
Payments & pricing10%12.56010CowAgent +50
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88354CowAgent +29
Transparency & trust7%8.84547Tomo +2
Negative events≤15-50
TotalC 58.5/100F 13.1/100

Facts side by side

FactCowAgentTomo
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorzhayujieMapo Labs, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceMITClosed service under Tomo's Terms of Service (Mapo Labs, Inc., last updated 24 September 2026).
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-09-302026-09-29
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.

Tomo

Tomo is a hosted personal AI over iMessage and an iOS app, centred on goals, check-ins and reminders, with regular iOS releases since April 2026. No outside agent can call it, there's no free plan, and no status page, security contact or subprocessor list was found.

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

Tomo

  1. Don't plan to call Tomo from another agent. It answers only the owner's iMessage, group chats it's added to and the iOS app.
  2. Tell the owner that adding Tomo to a group chat applies its terms to every participant.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, CowAgent or Tomo?

CowAgent scores 58.5 (C) on agent readiness against Tomo's 13.1 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are CowAgent and Tomo open source?

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

Other comparisons with CowAgent or Tomo

Disclosure

Tomo 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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