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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

Leon vs NanoClaw

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistant proactive.

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

LeonLouis Grenard (Leon AI) · Agent harness E41/100#934 of 986 NanoClawNanoCo, Inc. · Agent harness B68.3/100#229 of 986

Which one, for what

Leon E

Best 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 incidents deducted, where NanoClaw loses 5 points for them

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

NanoClaw B

Best for A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine, reachable from chat apps, with container isolation and scheduled tasks, and who is willing to keep a fork.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 32
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 33
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 57
  • Security & auth, 74 against 34
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 15
  • Transparency & trust, 65 against 60

Watch for

The Claude provider runs with permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions', so shell, file and web tools run inside the container with no prompt

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLeonNanoClawEdge
Reliability16%203278NanoClaw +46
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.23382NanoClaw +49
Agent ergonomics13%16.25770NanoClaw +13
Security & auth14%17.53474NanoClaw +40
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81578NanoClaw +63
Transparency & trust7%8.86065NanoClaw +5
Negative events≤150-5
TotalE 41/100B 68.3/100

Facts side by side

FactLeonNanoClaw
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorLouis Grenard (Leon AI)NanoCo, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2023-05-012026-10-09
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno 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
Popularity18k stars31k stars

Verdicts

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.

NanoClaw

Each session runs in an unprivileged Docker container and API keys stay in a credential gateway on the host, so a manipulated agent cannot read them. Inside the container the agent runs with permission prompts off, network egress is open by default, and it can message any chat it is wired to without approval.

Before you call either

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

NanoClaw

  1. Install with git clone and bash nanoclaw.sh. There is no registry package, and setup needs Docker, Node 22 or later and a Claude or Codex credential
  2. Set NANOCLAW_EGRESS_LOCKDOWN=true before giving an agent credentials or an audience of strangers. The default leaves egress open
  3. Put chats with different audiences in separate agent groups. Every session of a group shares one read-write workspace and memory tree
  4. Turn on per-request approval for a secret in the gateway when its use should wait for a person. It is off unless configured
  5. On OneCLI installs, move the gateway to 1.42.0 by the upgrade guide before updating to 2026.10.0. The updater stops until that is done

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Leon or NanoClaw?

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Leon and NanoClaw open source?

Yes. Leon is open source (MIT). NanoClaw is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with Leon or NanoClaw

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