Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run
IronClaw vs QwenPaw
IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against QwenPaw's 62.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistant proactive.
Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons
Which one, for what
IronClaw B
Best 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
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 68
- Security & auth, 66 against 60
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 56
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
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.
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
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 | IronClaw | QwenPaw | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 67 | 70 | QwenPaw +3 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 74 | 68 | IronClaw +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 69 | 67 | IronClaw +2 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 66 | 60 | IronClaw +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 74 | 73 | IronClaw +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 75 | 56 | IronClaw +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| Total | B 66.7/100 | B 62.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | IronClaw | QwenPaw |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | NEAR AI | AgentScope |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-11 |
| 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 | 36k 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.
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
IronClaw
- Open Settings and turn off global auto-approve, or set send and delete tools to ask each time, before connecting mail or chat accounts
- Install with the release installer and run
ironclaw onboard. 1.x does not migrate 0.29 data, so use a fresh home directory - Call
POST /api/v1/responseswith the bearer token from~/.ironclaw/reborn/webui-token. Keep under 30 requests in 60 seconds - Resolve approval and OAuth gates in the web interface. The Responses API fails the turn instead of surfacing them
- Connect MCP servers over HTTP only. The stdio transport is rejected
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, IronClaw or QwenPaw?
IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against QwenPaw's 62.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.
Are IronClaw and QwenPaw open source?
Yes. IronClaw is open source (MIT OR Apache-2.0). QwenPaw is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with IronClaw or QwenPaw
- AstrBot vs IronClaw
- AstrBot vs QwenPaw
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- CowAgent vs QwenPaw
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- Grok Bot vs IronClaw
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- Haven vs IronClaw
- Haven vs QwenPaw
- Hermes Agent vs IronClaw
- Hermes Agent vs QwenPaw
- Instinct vs IronClaw
- Instinct vs QwenPaw
- IronClaw vs Leon
- IronClaw vs Lindy
- IronClaw vs nanobot
- IronClaw vs NanoClaw
- IronClaw vs Dots
- IronClaw vs OpenClaw
- IronClaw vs PicoClaw
- IronClaw vs Poke
- IronClaw vs ZeroClaw
- IronClaw vs Zo Computer
- 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/ironclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/ironclaw.json·/api/v1/tools/qwenpaw.json - From a terminal
anchor compare ironclaw qwenpaw(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "ironclaw", "b": "qwenpaw"}at/mcp, no key