Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run
Instinct vs QwenPaw
QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Instinct's 11.4 (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
Instinct F
Best 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.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where QwenPaw loses 3 points for them
Watch for
No price is published. The terms say fees may apply to certain functions, are charged in US dollars and are non-refundable
QwenPaw B
Best for One person who wants an assistant on Chinese and Western chat apps with scheduled digests, a consumer mailbox and file-based memory, on their own machine and with a model of their choice.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 70 against 5
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 3
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 5
- Security & auth, 60 against 25
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 3
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 51
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source
Watch for
Usage data is on by default, qwenpaw init --defaults accepts it without a prompt, and the opt-out variable is absent from the README and docs
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Instinct | QwenPaw | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 5 | 70 | QwenPaw +65 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 3 | 68 | QwenPaw +65 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 5 | 67 | QwenPaw +62 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 25 | 60 | QwenPaw +35 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 0 | 60 | QwenPaw +60 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 3 | 73 | QwenPaw +70 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 51 | 56 | QwenPaw +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | F 11.4/100 | B 62.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Instinct | QwenPaw |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Spear Street Technology, Inc. | AgentScope |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Instinct's Terms of Service, which grant personal use only | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-26 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-26 | no document linked |
| 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 | 36k 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.
QwenPaw
Mail tools ask for approval by default, automatic mail handling may not delete permanently, and the security docs list what each sandbox backend fails to enforce. Usage data is sent by default, the default approval level passes every tool call no rule flags, and no privacy policy or security advisory is published.
Before you call either
Instinct
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Disconnecting an account does not delete what was indexed from it. Delete that data at app.instinct.com/workspace
- Treat purchases and bookings as final. The terms say actions may not be reversible and that confirmation controls are not guaranteed
QwenPaw
- Set
QWENPAW_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=truebeforeqwenpaw init --defaultsorqwenpaw app. Both send usage data without asking - Set
approval_leveltoSTRICTorSMARTinagent.json. The defaultAUTOruns every tool call no guard rule flags - Set
dm_policyandgroup_policytoallowlistwithallow_fromon each channel. Both default toopen - Set
QWENPAW_AUTH_ENABLED=truebefore binding beyond 127.0.0.1. Requests from localhost skip login even then - Keep mail tools on
askforsend_message,delete_messageanddelete_thread, and turn on Mail Access Control with automatic handling
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Instinct or QwenPaw?
QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Instinct's 11.4 (F), and leads in every scored category.
Are Instinct and QwenPaw open source?
No open-source release is listed for Instinct. QwenPaw is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with Instinct or QwenPaw
- AstrBot vs Instinct
- AstrBot vs QwenPaw
- CowAgent vs Instinct
- CowAgent vs QwenPaw
- GAIA vs Instinct
- GAIA vs QwenPaw
- Gemini Spark vs Instinct
- Gemini Spark vs QwenPaw
- Grok Bot vs Instinct
- Grok Bot vs QwenPaw
- Haven vs Instinct
- Haven vs QwenPaw
- Hermes Agent vs Instinct
- Hermes Agent vs QwenPaw
- Instinct vs IronClaw
- Instinct vs Leon
- Instinct vs Lindy
- Instinct vs nanobot
- Instinct vs NanoClaw
- Instinct vs Dots
- Instinct vs OpenClaw
- Instinct vs PicoClaw
- Instinct vs Poke
- Instinct vs ZeroClaw
- Instinct vs Zo Computer
- IronClaw vs QwenPaw
- Leon vs QwenPaw
- Lindy vs QwenPaw
- nanobot vs QwenPaw
- NanoClaw vs QwenPaw
- Dots vs QwenPaw
- OpenClaw vs QwenPaw
- PicoClaw vs QwenPaw
- Poke vs QwenPaw
- QwenPaw vs ZeroClaw
- QwenPaw vs Zo Computer
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/instinct-vs-qwenpaw.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/instinct.json·/api/v1/tools/qwenpaw.json - From a terminal
anchor compare instinct qwenpaw(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "instinct", "b": "qwenpaw"}at/mcp, no key