# Instinct vs IronClaw

> IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to Instinct's 11.4 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-12

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Instinct's 11.4 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

- Instinct: grade F, 11.4/100, rank #984 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/instinct.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/instinct.json
- IronClaw: grade B, 66.7/100, rank #288 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ironclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 190 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Instinct (F)

Good for: A consumer assistant for one adult who wants errands done by text or phone call, such as bill disputes, gifts, groceries, appointments and travel, and who accepts that it acts and spends as their agent.

Watch for: No price is published. The terms say fees may apply to certain functions, are charged in US dollars and are non-refundable

### IronClaw (B)

Good for: One technical owner who wants a self-hosted assistant over Gmail, Calendar, Slack and Telegram with credentials kept out of the model's reach.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 5
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 3
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 5
- Security & auth, 66 against 25
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 3
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 51

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: Global auto-approve defaults to on in the 1.4.1 source, so tools marked ask (send, trash, delete) run without a prompt. Only financial, approval and budget effects always ask


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Instinct | IronClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 5 | 67 | IronClaw +62 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 3 | 74 | IronClaw +71 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 5 | 69 | IronClaw +64 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 25 | 66 | IronClaw +41 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 60 | IronClaw +60 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 3 | 74 | IronClaw +71 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 75 | IronClaw +24 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **11.4 · F** | **66.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Instinct | IronClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Spear Street Technology, Inc. | NEAR AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Instinct's Terms of Service, which grant personal use only | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-26 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-26 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | none | 13k stars |

## Verdicts

**Instinct.** The terms and privacy policy are specific about connected accounts, model training and the risks of autonomous actions, and security.txt is valid. No price, documentation, status page, changelog or programmatic interface is published, and customer content trains AI models unless the owner opts out.

**IronClaw.** Credentials stay in an encrypted store and are injected at the host boundary, and extensions declare per-tool permissions, network targets and OAuth scopes. The global auto-approve setting defaults to on in the 1.4.1 source, so tools marked ask, such as `gmail.send_message`, run unprompted until the owner turns it off.

## Before you call either

### Instinct

1. Do not plan on calling Instinct from a program. No API, MCP server or key was found, and the terms forbid automation software and benchmarking
2. A person signs in at app.instinct.com with a phone number and a one-time code by text, and may wait for a place when the service is at capacity
3. Tell the owner to opt out of model training at app.instinct.com/settings before connecting mail or files, since training is on by default
4. Disconnecting an account does not delete what was indexed from it. Delete that data at app.instinct.com/workspace
5. Treat purchases and bookings as final. The terms say actions may not be reversible and that confirmation controls are not guaranteed

### IronClaw

1. Open Settings and turn off global auto-approve, or set send and delete tools to ask each time, before connecting mail or chat accounts
2. Install with the release installer and run `ironclaw onboard`. 1.x does not migrate 0.29 data, so use a fresh home directory
3. Call `POST /api/v1/responses` with the bearer token from `~/.ironclaw/reborn/webui-token`. Keep under 30 requests in 60 seconds
4. Resolve approval and OAuth gates in the web interface. The Responses API fails the turn instead of surfacing them
5. Connect MCP servers over HTTP only. The stdio transport is rejected

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Instinct or IronClaw?

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Instinct's 11.4 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Instinct and IronClaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Instinct. IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-ironclaw.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "instinct", "b": "ironclaw"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare instinct ironclaw`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/instinct.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json

## Other comparisons with Instinct or IronClaw

- [AstrBot vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-instinct.md)
- [AstrBot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-instinct.md)
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- [GAIA vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-instinct.md)
- [GAIA vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-instinct.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Grok Bot vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-instinct.md)
- [Grok Bot vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Haven vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-instinct.md)
- [Haven vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Instinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-instinct.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-ironclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-leon.md)
- [Instinct vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-lindy.md)
- [Instinct vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Instinct vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [Instinct vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-poke.md)
- [Instinct vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [Instinct vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [IronClaw vs Leon](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon.md)
- [IronClaw vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.md)
- [IronClaw vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-nanobot.md)
- [IronClaw vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [IronClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [IronClaw vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-zo-computer.md)