# nanobot vs Town

> nanobot scores 62.4 (B) to Town's 48.7 (D) for proactive personal assistants. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-town
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-town.md (~3,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-town.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-town.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: 2026-10-13

nanobot scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Town's 48.7 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Town leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do proactive personal assistants.

- nanobot: grade B, 62.4/100, rank #446 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nanobot.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nanobot.json
- Town: grade D, 48.7/100, rank #834 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/town.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/town.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 834 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### nanobot (B)

Good for: A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with file-based memory and a free choice of model.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 33
- Agent ergonomics, 74 against 49
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 60

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No per-action approval was found in the docs or source. The agent sends messages, runs shell commands and edits files without asking

### Town (D)

Good for: An owner who wants a mail and calendar assistant whose routines other systems can trigger.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 79 against 63
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 48

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where nanobot loses 6 points for them

Watch for: The privacy policy describes training with an opt-out and the trust page says training is opt-in.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | nanobot | Town | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 35 | nanobot +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 33 | nanobot +44 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 49 | nanobot +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 79 | Town +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | nanobot +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 60 | nanobot +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 48 | 63 | Town +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.4 · B** | **48.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | nanobot | Town |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | HKUDS | Town.com, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Closed service under Town's Terms of Service (Town.com, Inc., updated 21 July 2026). |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-10-10 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no 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 |  |  |
| Popularity | 49k stars | none |

## Verdicts

**nanobot.** nanobot runs on the owner's machine under the MIT licence, with no telemetry found in its source and memory kept as files the owner can read and restore. No per-action approval step was found, and the shell sandbox and workspace restriction are off by default. Five security advisories were published between March and September 2026, all with fixes.

**Town.** Town is a hosted assistant that works across the owner's mail, calendar and work apps, and other systems can start its routines through per-routine webhooks with rotatable secrets, idempotency keys and documented errors. A caller can't read a run's result. The privacy policy and trust page disagree on whether training is on by default.

## Before you call either

### nanobot

1. Set `tools.restrictToWorkspace` to true and `tools.exec.sandbox` to `bwrap` or `seatbelt` before giving it real accounts. Both are off by default
2. Run 0.3.0 or later. Earlier versions carry the published SSRF flaw in web fetch (GHSA-vc5v-6vwm-wf9m)
3. Keep `allowFrom` narrow on every channel and never set `["*"]` on Email, which has no pairing
4. Write secrets as `${VAR}` references in `~/.nanobot/config.json`. Plain values are stored in clear text
5. Use `nanobot -m "..."` for a one-shot run, and keep `nanobot gateway` running for channels, schedules and heartbeat

### Town

1. Start a Town routine with POST to its webhook URL, Authorization Bearer whsec_ secret, and application/json or text/plain. Expect 202 only.
2. Send X-Town-Idempotency-Key with a stable event id on every retry so Town doesn't start a second run.
3. Treat 404 as wrong secret, disabled endpoint or missing endpoint alike, and ask the owner to check Routine Settings rather than retrying.
4. Send account_email only if the owner allowed the override. It must match a connected account in full and can't widen the routine's scope.
5. Ask the owner to keep routines that act on webhook input in approval-required mode, as Town's own docs advise.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, nanobot or Town?

nanobot scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Town's 48.7 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Town leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Are nanobot and Town open source?

nanobot is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Town.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with nanobot or Town

- [asaply vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-nanobot.md)
- [asaply vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-town.md)
- [Asmi vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Asmi vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-town.md)
- [Boba vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Boba vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-town.md)
- [Brea vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Brea vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-town.md)
- [Del vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/del-vs-nanobot.md)
- [Del vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/del-vs-town.md)
- [HireAlpha vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hirealpha-vs-nanobot.md)
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- [nanobot vs OpenInstinct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-openinstinct.md)
- [nanobot vs Orbits](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-orbits.md)
- [nanobot vs Orchid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-orchid-ai.md)
- [nanobot vs szn](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-szn.md)
- [nanobot vs Tab](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-tab-bot.md)
- [nanobot vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-zapia.md)
- [OpenInstinct vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openinstinct-vs-town.md)
- [Orbits vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orbits-vs-town.md)
- [Orchid vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orchid-ai-vs-town.md)
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- [Tab vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tab-bot-vs-town.md)
- [Town vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-zapia.md)
- [AstrBot vs nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-nanobot.md)
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- [Poke vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-town.md)
- [QwenPaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qwenpaw-vs-town.md)
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- [Town vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [nanobot vs Natura tinyNature](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-natura.md)
- [nanobot vs Pally](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-pally.md)
- [nanobot vs Tomo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-tomo.md)
- [nanobot vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-wajo.md)
- [Natura tinyNature vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/natura-vs-town.md)
- [Pally vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pally-vs-town.md)
- [Tomo vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tomo-vs-town.md)
- [Town vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-wajo.md)
- [nanobot vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-talorys.md)
- [Talorys vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/talorys-vs-town.md)

## Disclosure

- Town 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.