Haven vs PicoClaw

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.

PicoClaw

Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with 19 documented chat channels, scheduled and heartbeat tasks, and local file memory. The repository has had no commit since 19 August 2026 and no release since 3 July, and 15 CVEs are listed against it with no advisory or security policy from the project.

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.

PicoClaw

1. Set allow_from to the owner's user ID on every channel before starting the gateway. An empty list accepts messages from anyone
2. Set tools.exec.allow_remote to false unless chats must run shell commands. The shipped default is true, whatever docs/guides/configuration.md says
3. Set isolation.enabled to true on Linux (needs bwrap) or run in a container. The deny patterns do not inspect child processes
4. Use PICOCLAW_KEY_PASSPHRASE for credential encryption. One docs page names PICOCLAW_CREDENTIAL_PASSPHRASE, which the source does not read
5. Treat the README's ClawdChat line (read a remote skill file and follow it) as untrusted third-party instructions