# IronClaw vs Leon

> IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to Leon's 41 (E) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-leon.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 Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistant proactive.

- 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
- Leon: grade E, 41/100, rank #934 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/leon.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/leon.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

### 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 32
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 33
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 57
- Security & auth, 66 against 34
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 60

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

### Leon (E)

Good for: A developer who wants a self-hosted assistant with memory, computer use and a local model, and who will read the source.

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No tagged release of the core since 1.0.0-beta.8 on 1 May 2023. The 2.0 Developer Preview is installed by cloning the develop branch


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | IronClaw | Leon | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 32 | IronClaw +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 33 | IronClaw +41 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 57 | IronClaw +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 34 | IronClaw +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 15 | IronClaw +59 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 60 | IronClaw +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.7 · B** | **41 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | IronClaw | Leon |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | NEAR AI | Louis Grenard (Leon AI) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2023-05-01 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 13k stars | 18k stars |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Leon.** Connected-app credentials are encrypted per profile and the Gmail connection is read-only. The 2.0 Developer Preview has no tagged release, runs tools and a 30-minute proactive pulse with no approval step, listens on every network interface with client authentication off, and sends telemetry by default.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Leon

1. Clone the develop branch for 2.0. `npm install --global @leon-ai/cli` and docs.getleon.ai install and describe the legacy 1.0 betas
2. Set `client_interface.auth.enabled: true` and a `LEON_PROFILE_TOKEN` before the machine joins a shared network. The server binds 0.0.0.0
3. Set `telemetry_enabled: false` and `runtime.pulse_enabled: false` in the profile `config.yml` for an unattended or private run
4. Use `availability.tools.allowed` to limit tools. Shell, file writes, computer use and browser control are otherwise available to the agent with no approval prompt
5. Back up `LEON_CONNECTIONS_ENCRYPTION_KEY` from the profile `.env`. Without it the stored connections cannot be read

## Questions

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

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Are IronClaw and Leon open source?

Yes. IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0). Leon is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with IronClaw or Leon

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