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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

IronClaw vs Zo Computer

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Zo Computer's 43.1 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons

IronClawNEAR AI · Agent harness B66.7/100#288 of 986 Zo ComputerZo Computer Company · HTTP API E43.1/100#911 of 986

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

  • Reliability, 67 against 15
  • Agent ergonomics, 69 against 34
  • Security & auth, 66 against 37
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 74 against 68
  • Transparency & trust, 75 against 60

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

Zo Computer E

Best for One person who wants a hosted assistant with its own Linux machine, reachable by text message and chat apps, and who accepts that the assistant acts on connected accounts without a documented approval step.

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

The access token for the API and MCP endpoint grants full access to the workspace, with no scoped or read-only token documented

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runIronClawZo ComputerEdge
Reliability16%206715IronClaw +52
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27473IronClaw +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.26934IronClaw +35
Security & auth14%17.56637IronClaw +29
Payments & pricing10%12.56040IronClaw +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87468IronClaw +6
Transparency & trust7%8.87560IronClaw +15
Negative events≤15-20
TotalB 66.7/100E 43.1/100

Facts side by side

FactIronClawZo Computer
KindAgent harnessHTTP API
VendorNEAR AIZo Computer Company
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.zo.computer/mcp
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMIT OR Apache-2.0Proprietary service under Zo Computer Company's terms of service
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-292026-09-14
Terms last updatedno document linked2025-08-08
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-05-20
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity13k starsnone

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.

Zo Computer

Zo publishes an OpenAPI file, Markdown docs, plan prices and a named list of the providers that receive user content. One access token grants full access to the workspace, no approval step before sending or buying was found in the reviewed docs, and no status page, rate limit or SLA is published.

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

Zo Computer

  1. Send POST https://api.zo.computer/zo/ask with Authorization: Bearer zo_sk_... and an input string. The owner creates the token under Settings > Advanced
  2. Pass persona_id for a persona with a narrow tool set. The token itself carries every permission the owner has
  3. Set memory_mode to off to keep workspace memory out of a request. The field is in the OpenAPI file and absent from the API guide
  4. Do not retry /zo/ask blindly after a timeout. No idempotency key is documented and the request may already have sent a message
  5. Append .md to any guide or reference URL for Markdown

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, IronClaw or Zo Computer?

IronClaw scores 66.7 (B) on agent readiness against Zo Computer's 43.1 (E), and leads in every scored category.

Can an agent call IronClaw and Zo Computer without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for IronClaw. Zo Computer has a hosted endpoint at https://api.zo.computer/mcp.

Are IronClaw and Zo Computer open source?

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

Other comparisons with IronClaw or Zo Computer

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