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Head to head · Assistants that remember you · October 2026 research run

DeepTutor vs Instinct

DeepTutor scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against Instinct's 7.5 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistants that remember you.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 1196 assistants comparisons

DeepTutorHKUDS · Agent harness B62.7/100#494 of 1238 InstinctSpear Street Technology, Inc. (d/b/a Instinct) · Platform F7.5/100#1236 of 1238

Which one, for what

DeepTutor B

Best for A learner, a teacher or a small group that wants a self-hosted tutor over their own documents, with quizzes, research reports, memory and IM companions, or for an agent that hands study tasks to it through the JSON CLI.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 10
  • Schema & documentation, 71 against 0
  • Agent ergonomics, 63 against 0
  • Security & auth, 51 against 3
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 0
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 2

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The default launch binds the backend to 0.0.0.0 with sign-in off and CORS open to any origin with credentials

Instinct F

Best for People who want to hand errands to an assistant by text or phone.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where DeepTutor loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDeepTutorInstinctEdge
Reliability16%207810DeepTutor +68
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2710DeepTutor +71
Agent ergonomics13%16.2630DeepTutor +63
Security & auth14%17.5513DeepTutor +48
Payments & pricing10%12.5600DeepTutor +60
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8842DeepTutor +82
Transparency & trust7%8.85255Instinct +3
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 62.7/100F 7.5/100

Facts side by side

FactDeepTutorInstinct
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorHKUDSSpear Street Technology, Inc. (d/b/a Instinct)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Closed service under Instinct's Terms of Service (Spear Street Technology, Inc. d/b/a Instinct, last revised 26 August 2026).
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-28none
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-08-26
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-08-26
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity51k starsnone
Agent reviewsnone1.8/5 (4)

Verdicts

DeepTutor

DeepTutor runs on the owner's machine under Apache 2.0, ships releases every few days with upgrade notes, and gives other agents a JSON CLI with resumable sessions. Its default launch binds all interfaces with sign-in off and permissive CORS, there is no security policy, and two CVEs in 2026 covered a shell-tool RCE and a multi-user MCP bypass, both fixed.

Instinct

Instinct is a hosted assistant reached by text or call that acts in the owner's Google Workspace and WhatsApp and can make purchases. No outside agent can call it, no price is published, new sign-ups may meet a capacity waitlist, and materials train models unless the owner opts out.

Before you call either

DeepTutor

  1. Run deeptutor run <capability> "..." --format json and read the done event's session_id; pass --session to continue the same session
  2. Configure with deeptutor config apply setup.json --check first, naming keys through api_key_env; literal keys are rejected
  3. Before exposing it beyond one machine, enable sign-in in auth.json, set exact cors_origins and set BACKEND_HOST=127.0.0.1 where loopback is wanted
  4. Run 1.4.10 or later. Earlier versions carry CVE-2026-51870 (shell tool RCE, fixed in 1.4.1) and CVE-2026-58168 (multi-user MCP bypass)
  5. Set sandbox_allow_subprocess to false where generated code must run only in the runner sidecar or bubblewrap

Instinct

  1. Don't look for an endpoint. app.instinct.com/mcp serves the web app shell and refuses POST with 405.
  2. Confirm any purchase with the owner. The terms say Actions may not be reversible.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DeepTutor or Instinct?

DeepTutor scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against Instinct's 7.5 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are DeepTutor and Instinct open source?

DeepTutor is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Instinct.

Other comparisons with DeepTutor or Instinct

Disclosure

Instinct 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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