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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

GAIA vs Lindy

GAIA scores 49.5 (D) on agent readiness against Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Lindy leads on payments & pricing. Both do assistant proactive.

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

GAIAThe Experience Company · Platform D49.5/100#813 of 986 LindyCrivello Corp (doing business as Lindy) · Platform F32.3/100#968 of 986

Which one, for what

GAIA D

Best for It suits one person who wants mail triage, meeting briefs, todos and scheduled workflows from one assistant reachable on WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or iMessage, and who wants to read the source.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 67 against 24
  • Schema & documentation, 51 against 32
  • Agent ergonomics, 54 against 43
  • Security & auth, 54 against 49
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 9
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 52

Watch for

The default approval mode in the source is always_allow, commented as nothing gated, while the privacy policy and the 26 August release notes say destructive actions wait for approval.

Lindy F

Best for Lindy suits a person or small team that lives in Slack and Google or Microsoft mail and wants briefs, drafts, scheduling and meeting notes done on a schedule.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 35 against 20

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The integrations page says approval settings apply in shared Slack threads only. Web chat, Slack direct messages, iMessage and SMS are not covered, and reads are never covered.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGAIALindyEdge
Reliability16%206724GAIA +43
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25132GAIA +19
Agent ergonomics13%16.25443GAIA +11
Security & auth14%17.55449GAIA +5
Payments & pricing10%12.52035Lindy +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8789GAIA +69
Transparency & trust7%8.86052GAIA +8
Negative events≤15-5-3
TotalD 49.5/100F 32.3/100

Facts side by side

FactGAIALindy
KindPlatformPlatform
VendorThe Experience CompanyCrivello Corp (doing business as Lindy)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuthOAuth
PricingPaidPaid
x402nono
LicencePolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0Proprietary service under Lindy's Terms of Service. No source is published
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-142025-10-21
Terms last updated2026-08-142026-09-24
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-072026-09-28
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity308 starsnone

Verdicts

GAIA

GAIA's source is public, so its approval gate, memory store and token handling can be read. Three approval modes and per-tool overrides exist, but the default mode in the source runs every action unasked, which the privacy policy and release notes do not say. Pro costs $30 a month and self-hosting is limited to noncommercial use.

Lindy

Lindy keeps what it remembers in files the owner can read and edit, and publishes credit prices. Its approval setting applies in shared Slack threads only, so writes asked for by direct message, text or web chat run unasked, which its pricing page does not say. It has no status page, and its changelog stops in October 2025.

Before you call either

GAIA

  1. Set Settings > Approvals to Always ask or Auto before connecting mail. The default in the source runs every action, including send and delete, without asking.
  2. Expect no public API on the hosted service. The backend turns off its OpenAPI document in production, so reach GAIA through its apps, bots or CLI.
  3. Check the plan before relying on the hosted service. The README and docs describe a Free plan, and the pricing page says GAIA is a paid product.
  4. For self-hosting, prepare Docker, Node.js 20, a WorkOS account and a model key first, and confirm the use is noncommercial under the licence.
  5. Add outside tools as MCP servers by URL on the Integrations page. GAIA asks before adding a server in every approval mode.

Lindy

  1. Treat a request sent by direct message, text or web chat as unguarded. Approval prompts appear in shared Slack threads only.
  2. Run a routine as a dry run before turning it on. A dry run reads real data and sends, posts and writes nothing.
  3. Turn off unused tools after adding an MCP server. Every supported tool arrives switched on, and a large server adds more than a hundred.
  4. Expect a billed seat for anyone who mentions Lindy in Slack. A teammate who joins that way has seven free days first.
  5. Connect only hosted MCP servers on public HTTPS with streamable HTTP, the one kind the docs describe.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, GAIA or Lindy?

GAIA scores 49.5 (D) on agent readiness against Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Lindy leads on payments & pricing.

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