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

Hark Pro vs Poke

Poke scores 37.6 (F) on agent readiness against Hark Pro's 21.6 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Hark Pro leads on security & auth. Both do assistants that remember you.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 917 assistants comparisons

Hark ProHark Labs, Inc. · Platform F21.6/100#1123 of 1171 PokeThe Interaction Company of California Inc. · Platform F37.6/100#1086 of 1171

Which one, for what

Hark Pro F

Best for Hark Pro is a personal assistant for web, iOS and Android.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 45 against 24

Watch for

External API and MCP access were not verified

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

  • Reliability, 51 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 42 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 30 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 31 against 0
  • Transparency & trust, 58 against 42

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 runHark ProPokeEdge
Reliability16%201551Poke +36
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21042Poke +32
Agent ergonomics13%16.21030Poke +20
Security & auth14%17.54524Hark Pro +21
Payments & pricing10%12.53030even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8031Poke +31
Transparency & trust7%8.84258Poke +16
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 21.6/100F 37.6/100

Facts side by side

FactHark ProPoke
KindPlatformPlatform
VendorHark Labs, Inc.The Interaction Company of California Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service; see governing terms and the access limitations below.Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The poke npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last releasenone2026-06-25
Terms last updated2026-10-012026-03-17
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-012026-09-11
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Agent reviews2/5 (4)1.8/5 (4)

Verdicts

Hark Pro

Free tier includes the assistant capabilities. External API and MCP access were not verified.

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

Hark Pro

  1. Hand onboarding to the person using the Hark app.
  2. Do not treat Hark Services integrations as an API for calling Hark.

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, Hark Pro or Poke?

Poke scores 37.6 (F) on agent readiness against Hark Pro's 21.6 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Hark Pro leads on security & auth.

Other comparisons with Hark Pro or Poke

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