Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

Haven vs ZeroClaw

ZeroClaw scores 70.2 (BB) 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 ZeroClaw loses 3 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.

ZeroClaw BB

Best for One person who wants an assistant on their own hardware that answers on Telegram, Discord, Matrix or email, asks before it writes or runs commands, and works with a local model.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 74 against 35
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 4
  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 6
  • Security & auth, 76 against 13
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 35
  • Transparency & trust, 64 against 51

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

The docs state that command execution is not audited. [security.audit] records certificate events only, and tool receipts are opt-in and not durable

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHavenZeroClawEdge
Reliability16%203574ZeroClaw +39
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2482ZeroClaw +78
Agent ergonomics13%16.2672ZeroClaw +66
Security & auth14%17.51376ZeroClaw +63
Payments & pricing10%12.53060ZeroClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83580ZeroClaw +45
Transparency & trust7%8.85164ZeroClaw +13
Negative events≤150-3
TotalF 22.2/100BB 70.2/100

Facts side by side

FactHavenZeroClaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorHello Haven, Inc.ZeroClaw Labs
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Hello Haven's Terms of ServiceMIT OR Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-172026-09-05
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
Popularitynone33k 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.

ZeroClaw

Supervised autonomy is the default, so tools outside a short read-only list wait for the owner's approval, and secrets are encrypted in the config file. The docs state that command execution is not written to an audit log, and the project publishes no privacy policy or terms.

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.

ZeroClaw

  1. Keep [risk_profiles.<alias>] level = "supervised". full runs every tool not listed in always_ask, and the YOLO preset removes the sandbox and path rules too
  2. Add sending and account tools such as send_via, google_workspace and http_request to always_ask so a session-level Always grant cannot skip the prompt
  3. List senders in [peer_groups.<name>] external_peers. ["*"] accepts anyone on that channel
  4. Set [web_fetch].allowed_domains and [http_request].allowed_domains. Fetches run unprompted and the OS sandbox does not block egress
  5. Run one-shot tasks with zeroclaw agent -a <alias> -m "<task>". A cron or webhook turn has no prompt, so shell calls fall to the command policy

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Haven or ZeroClaw?

ZeroClaw scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Haven's 22.2 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Haven and ZeroClaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Haven. ZeroClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Haven or ZeroClaw

Machine-readable

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