Head to head · Assistants that act in your accounts · October 2026 research run
Lobby vs Orchid
Orchid scores 20.2 (F) on agent readiness against Lobby's 11.1 (F), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Lobby leads on payments & pricing. Both do assistants that act in your accounts.
Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 1005 assistants comparisons
Which one, for what
Lobby F
Best for A person who wants mail drafts, follow-ups and scheduling prepared for approval across Google and a few work tools.
Ahead on
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 10
Watch for
No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.
Orchid F
Best for A founder or operator who wants Gmail and calendar triage by text with approval before anything leaves.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 50 against 15
- Maintenance & community, 24 against 2
- Transparency & trust, 60 against 43
Watch for
No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint for an outside agent.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Lobby | Orchid | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 15 | 50 | Orchid +35 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 10 | 10 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 0 | 0 | even |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 0 | 0 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 10 | Lobby +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 2 | 24 | Orchid +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 43 | 60 | Orchid +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | F 11.1/100 | F 20.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Lobby | Orchid |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Platform | Platform |
| Vendor | Lobby OS, Inc. | Zero Email, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed service under Lobby's Terms of Use (Lobby OS, Inc.), last updated 26 March 2026. | Closed service under Orchid's Terms of Service (Zero Email, Inc., last updated 16 January 2026). |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Terms last updated | ||
| Privacy policy last updated | ||
| Customer content may train models | ||
| Terms restrict automated access | ||
| Terms restrict benchmarking | ||
| Terms or service can change without notice | ||
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | ||
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (4) | 2/5 (4) |
Verdicts
Lobby
Lobby is a paid email assistant that prepares replies, follow-ups and scheduling across Gmail, Calendar and work tools, and its terms say nothing is sent until the owner approves. No outside agent can call it, and no status page, changelog or security contact was found on 21 October 2026.
Orchid
Orchid is a paid executive assistant over iMessage, SMS and Telegram that holds drafts and calendar holds until the owner approves, with a public status page and a named subprocessor list. No outside agent can call it, there's no free tier, and its privacy policy allows training a personal model while its blog says it never trains.
Before you call either
Lobby
- Don't plan to call Lobby from another agent. It works only inside its own app for the signed-in owner.
- Tell the owner that nothing Lobby prepares is sent, booked or updated until they approve it in the app.
- Check whether the 7-day trial takes a card before signing the owner up. The terms don't say.
Orchid
- Don't plan to call Orchid from another agent. It answers only the owner's iMessage, SMS and Telegram threads.
- Check status.orchid.ai before telling the owner Orchid is down. The 7 August incident moved it to a new number.
- Tell the owner that drafts and holds wait for their approval unless they widen it.
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Lobby or Orchid?
Orchid scores 20.2 (F) on agent readiness against Lobby's 11.1 (F), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Lobby leads on payments & pricing.
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- AstrBot vs Lobby
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- folk vs Lobby
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- Grok Bot vs Lobby
- Haven vs Lobby
- Hermes Agent vs Lobby
- Instinct vs Lobby
- IronClaw vs Lobby
- Leon vs Lobby
- Lindy vs Lobby
- Lobby vs PicoClaw
- asaply vs Lobby
- Brea vs Lobby
- Del vs Lobby
- Gemini Spark vs Orchid
- HireAlpha vs Lobby
- Leon vs Orchid
- Lobby vs nanobot
- Lobby vs NanoClaw
- Lobby vs Natura tinyNature
- Lobby vs Dots
- Lobby vs OpenClaw
- Lobby vs OpenInstinct
- Lobby vs Orbits
- Lobby vs Pally
- Lobby vs Poke
- Lobby vs QwenPaw
- Lobby vs szn
- Lobby vs Tasker AI
- Lobby vs Tomo
- Lobby vs Town
- Lobby vs Wajo (Fo)
- Lobby vs Zapia
- Lobby vs ZeroClaw
- Lobby vs Zo Computer
- Natura tinyNature vs Orchid
- Orchid vs Wajo (Fo)
- Asmi vs Lobby
- Atticus vs Lobby
- Atticus vs Orchid
- Boba vs Lobby
- Hark Pro vs Lobby
- Hark Pro vs Orchid
- Lobby vs Tab
- Lobby vs Talorys
- Orchid vs Talorys
Disclosure
Lobby competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.
Orchid competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/lobby-os-vs-orchid-ai.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/lobby-os.json·/api/v1/tools/orchid-ai.json - From a terminal
anchor compare lobby-os orchid-ai(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "lobby-os", "b": "orchid-ai"}at/mcp, no key