# IronClaw vs OpenClaw

> OpenClaw and IronClaw score within a point of each other for assistant proactive, 67.1 and 66.7 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.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

OpenClaw and IronClaw score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.1 (B) and 66.7 (B). IronClaw leads on transparency & trust. 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
- OpenClaw: grade B, 67.1/100, rank #270 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openclaw.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:
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 68

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

### OpenClaw (B)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with their choice of model and files they can read and delete.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 67
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 74
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 69
- Security & auth, 74 against 66
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 74

Watch for: Without configuration the default is full access. Host exec runs with no approval and sandboxing is off


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | IronClaw | OpenClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 75 | OpenClaw +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 84 | OpenClaw +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 77 | OpenClaw +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 74 | OpenClaw +8 |
| 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 | 86 | OpenClaw +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 68 | IronClaw +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **66.7 · B** | **67.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | IronClaw | OpenClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | NEAR AI | OpenClaw Foundation |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-12 |
| 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 | 392k 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.

**OpenClaw.** Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with state, memory and credentials kept on the owner's machine and no paid tier. A fresh install runs tools on the host with full access, no approval prompt and no sandbox, and the project has published 722 security advisories since January 2026, 14 of them critical.

## 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

### OpenClaw

1. Set a session permission mode of `guarded` or `workspace`, or `tools.exec.mode`, before connecting mail. The default runs host commands without approval
2. Turn on `agents.defaults.sandbox` for any agent that reads mail, web pages or attachments. Sandboxing is off by default
3. Set `tools.message.crossContext.allowAcrossProviders` and `allowWithinProvider` to `false` to confine sends to the current conversation
4. Route incoming mail to a restricted reader agent, as the IMAP and Gmail guides show, and deny `gateway`, `cron`, `sessions_spawn` and `sessions_send` for it
5. Run `openclaw security audit` after setup, and treat the Gateway token as an owner credential. `POST /tools/invoke` accepts it with full operator access

## Questions

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

OpenClaw and IronClaw score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.1 (B) and 66.7 (B). IronClaw leads on transparency & trust.

### Are IronClaw and OpenClaw open source?

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


## For agents

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

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