# IronClaw vs Lindy

> IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) to Lindy's 32.3 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.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 Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. 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
- Lindy: grade F, 32.3/100, rank #968 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lindy.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lindy.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 24
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 32
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 43
- Security & auth, 66 against 49
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 9
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 52

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

### Lindy (F)

Good for: Lindy suits a person or small team that lives in Slack and Google or Microsoft mail and wants briefs, drafts, scheduling and meeting notes done on a schedule.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The integrations page says approval settings apply in shared Slack threads only. Web chat, Slack direct messages, iMessage and SMS are not covered, and reads are never covered.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | IronClaw | Lindy | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 24 | IronClaw +43 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 32 | IronClaw +42 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 43 | IronClaw +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 49 | IronClaw +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | IronClaw +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 9 | IronClaw +65 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 52 | IronClaw +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **66.7 · B** | **32.3 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | IronClaw | Lindy |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | NEAR AI | Crivello Corp (doing business as Lindy) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under Lindy's Terms of Service. No source is published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2025-10-21 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-09-28 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 13k stars | none |

## 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.

**Lindy.** Lindy keeps what it remembers in files the owner can read and edit, and publishes credit prices. Its approval setting applies in shared Slack threads only, so writes asked for by direct message, text or web chat run unasked, which its pricing page does not say. It has no status page, and its changelog stops in October 2025.

## 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

### Lindy

1. Treat a request sent by direct message, text or web chat as unguarded. Approval prompts appear in shared Slack threads only.
2. Run a routine as a dry run before turning it on. A dry run reads real data and sends, posts and writes nothing.
3. Turn off unused tools after adding an MCP server. Every supported tool arrives switched on, and a large server adds more than a hundred.
4. Expect a billed seat for anyone who mentions Lindy in Slack. A teammate who joins that way has seven free days first.
5. Connect only hosted MCP servers on public HTTPS with streamable HTTP, the one kind the docs describe.

## Questions

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

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are IronClaw and Lindy open source?

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with IronClaw or Lindy

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