# Lindy vs OpenClaw

> OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) to Lindy's 32.3 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-openclaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-openclaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-openclaw.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-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 scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

- Lindy: grade F, 32.3/100, rank #968 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lindy.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lindy.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

### Lindy (F)

Good for: Lindy suits a person or small team that lives in Slack and Google or Microsoft mail and wants briefs, drafts, scheduling and meeting notes done on a schedule.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The integrations page says approval settings apply in shared Slack threads only. Web chat, Slack direct messages, iMessage and SMS are not covered, and reads are never covered.

### 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 24
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 32
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 43
- Security & auth, 74 against 49
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 9
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 52

Also in its favour:
- Open source

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lindy | OpenClaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 24 | 75 | OpenClaw +51 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 32 | 84 | OpenClaw +52 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 43 | 77 | OpenClaw +34 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 74 | OpenClaw +25 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 60 | OpenClaw +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 9 | 86 | OpenClaw +77 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 68 | OpenClaw +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -8 | |
| **Total** | | **32.3 · F** | **67.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lindy | OpenClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | Crivello Corp (doing business as Lindy) | OpenClaw Foundation |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Lindy's Terms of Service. No source is published | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2025-10-21 | 2026-10-12 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-24 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-28 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | none | 392k stars |

## Verdicts

**Lindy.** Lindy keeps what it remembers in files the owner can read and edit, and publishes credit prices. Its approval setting applies in shared Slack threads only, so writes asked for by direct message, text or web chat run unasked, which its pricing page does not say. It has no status page, and its changelog stops in October 2025.

**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

### Lindy

1. Treat a request sent by direct message, text or web chat as unguarded. Approval prompts appear in shared Slack threads only.
2. Run a routine as a dry run before turning it on. A dry run reads real data and sends, posts and writes nothing.
3. Turn off unused tools after adding an MCP server. Every supported tool arrives switched on, and a large server adds more than a hundred.
4. Expect a billed seat for anyone who mentions Lindy in Slack. A teammate who joins that way has seven free days first.
5. Connect only hosted MCP servers on public HTTPS with streamable HTTP, the one kind the docs describe.

### 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, Lindy or OpenClaw?

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Lindy's 32.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Are Lindy and OpenClaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Lindy. OpenClaw is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Lindy or OpenClaw

- [AstrBot vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-lindy.md)
- [AstrBot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [CowAgent vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-lindy.md)
- [CowAgent vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-openclaw.md)
- [GAIA vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-lindy.md)
- [GAIA vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-lindy.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Grok Bot vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-lindy.md)
- [Grok Bot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Haven vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-lindy.md)
- [Haven vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-lindy.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Instinct vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-lindy.md)
- [Instinct vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-openclaw.md)
- [IronClaw vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-lindy.md)
- [IronClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Leon vs Lindy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/leon-vs-lindy.md)
- [Leon vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/leon-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Lindy vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Lindy vs NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-nanoclaw.md)
- [Lindy vs Dots](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-openai-dots.md)
- [Lindy vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [Lindy vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-poke.md)
- [Lindy vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [Lindy vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [Lindy vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [nanobot vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-openclaw.md)
- [NanoClaw vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-openclaw.md)
- [Dots vs OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-dots-vs-openclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs PicoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-picoclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [OpenClaw vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-zo-computer.md)