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Head to head · Assistants reached by message · October 2026 research run

Del vs NanoClaw

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Del's 20.6 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistants reached by message.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 834 assistants comparisons

DelHuman Interface, Inc. · Platform F20.6/100#991 of 1010 NanoClawNanoCo, Inc. · Agent harness B68.3/100#229 of 1010

Which one, for what

Del F

Best for People who want tasks, notes, reminders and Gmail handled by text on the channel they already use.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

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

NanoClaw B

Best for A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine, reachable from chat apps, with container isolation and scheduled tasks, and who is willing to keep a fork.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 25
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 0
  • Security & auth, 74 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 60
  • Transparency & trust, 65 against 57

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

The Claude provider runs with permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions', so shell, file and web tools run inside the container with no prompt

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDelNanoClawEdge
Reliability16%202578NanoClaw +53
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21082NanoClaw +72
Agent ergonomics13%16.2070NanoClaw +70
Security & auth14%17.5074NanoClaw +74
Payments & pricing10%12.53060NanoClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86078NanoClaw +18
Transparency & trust7%8.85765NanoClaw +8
Negative events≤150-5
TotalF 20.6/100B 68.3/100

Facts side by side

FactDelNanoClaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorHuman Interface, Inc.NanoCo, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceClosed service under Del's Terms of Service (Human Interface, Inc., a Delaware corporation, last updated 5 August 2026).MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-072026-10-09
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
Popularitynone31k stars

Verdicts

Del

Del is a hosted texting assistant and task workspace across iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, Discord and Slack, with a near-daily public changelog and a card-free 14-day trial. No outside agent can call it, no status page or security contact was found, and recent updates let some email actions skip approval.

NanoClaw

Each session runs in an unprivileged Docker container and API keys stay in a credential gateway on the host, so a manipulated agent cannot read them. Inside the container the agent runs with permission prompts off, network egress is open by default, and it can message any chat it is wired to without approval.

Before you call either

Del

  1. Don't plan to call Del from another agent. It answers only the owner's messaging threads and web workspace.
  2. Tell the owner web browsing tasks are limited to five a month on Standard and unlimited on Pro.

NanoClaw

  1. Install with git clone and bash nanoclaw.sh. There is no registry package, and setup needs Docker, Node 22 or later and a Claude or Codex credential
  2. Set NANOCLAW_EGRESS_LOCKDOWN=true before giving an agent credentials or an audience of strangers. The default leaves egress open
  3. Put chats with different audiences in separate agent groups. Every session of a group shares one read-write workspace and memory tree
  4. Turn on per-request approval for a secret in the gateway when its use should wait for a person. It is off unless configured
  5. On OneCLI installs, move the gateway to 1.42.0 by the upgrade guide before updating to 2026.10.0. The updater stops until that is done

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Del or NanoClaw?

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Del's 20.6 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Del and NanoClaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Del. NanoClaw is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Del or NanoClaw

Disclosure

Del 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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