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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

Leon vs OpenClaw

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (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 OpenClawOpenClaw Foundation · Agent harness B67.1/100#270 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 key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where OpenClaw loses 8 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

OpenClaw B

Best 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 32
  • Schema & documentation, 84 against 33
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 57
  • Security & auth, 74 against 34
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 15
  • Transparency & trust, 68 against 60

Watch for

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLeonOpenClawEdge
Reliability16%203275OpenClaw +43
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.23384OpenClaw +51
Agent ergonomics13%16.25777OpenClaw +20
Security & auth14%17.53474OpenClaw +40
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81586OpenClaw +71
Transparency & trust7%8.86068OpenClaw +8
Negative events≤150-8
TotalE 41/100B 67.1/100

Facts side by side

FactLeonOpenClaw
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorLouis Grenard (Leon AI)OpenClaw Foundation
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2023-05-012026-10-12
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 stars392k 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.

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

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

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, Leon or OpenClaw?

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Leon's 41 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are Leon and OpenClaw open source?

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

Other comparisons with Leon or OpenClaw

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