Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

Haven vs NanoClaw

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Haven's 22.2 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

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

Which one, for what

Haven F

Best for A consumer assistant for one person who wants to phone, text or email it and have it remember them.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No approval setting or list of actions that need confirmation was found on the public pages. The terms say it sends emails, SMS and calls following the user's instructions.

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 35
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 4
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 6
  • Security & auth, 74 against 13
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 35
  • Transparency & trust, 65 against 51

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • 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 runHavenNanoClawEdge
Reliability16%203578NanoClaw +43
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2482NanoClaw +78
Agent ergonomics13%16.2670NanoClaw +64
Security & auth14%17.51374NanoClaw +61
Payments & pricing10%12.53060NanoClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83578NanoClaw +43
Transparency & trust7%8.85165NanoClaw +14
Negative events≤150-5
TotalF 22.2/100B 68.3/100

Facts side by side

FactHavenNanoClaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorHello Haven, Inc.NanoCo, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Hello Haven's Terms of ServiceMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-172026-10-09
Terms last updated2026-07-24no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-07-24no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularitynone31k stars

Verdicts

Haven

Haven answers by phone call, text, email and app, is free in beta with no card, and publishes a status page with dated incidents. No public page read says which actions need approval, which accounts it connects or how their tokens are kept, and it names no model provider or sub-processor.

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

Haven

  1. Haven has no documented API or MCP server. An outside agent can reach it only through the owner's channels (call, SMS, email, app).
  2. Do not assume an approval step before Haven sends mail, texts or calls. None is documented on the public pages.
  3. Email Haven sends to other people names Hello Haven as sender and says it was sent on the user's behalf, per the terms.
  4. Chat messages, history, profile context and uploaded files go to third-party AI model providers that the vendor does not name.
  5. Check status.hellohaven.ai before relying on phone or voice. All four published incidents affected those channels.

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, Haven or NanoClaw?

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Haven's 22.2 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Haven and NanoClaw open source?

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

Other comparisons with Haven or NanoClaw

Machine-readable

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