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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

NanoClaw vs Poke

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.

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

NanoClawNanoCo, Inc. · Agent harness B68.3/100#229 of 986 PokeThe Interaction Company of California Inc. · Platform F37.6/100#955 of 986

Which one, for what

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 51
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 42
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 30
  • Security & auth, 74 against 24
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 31
  • Transparency & trust, 65 against 58

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

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

Poke F

Best for One person who wants an assistant in their text messages that reads and drafts mail, manages a calendar and reaches other apps through MCP.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where NanoClaw loses 5 points for them

Watch for

No documented setting for which actions need approval before Poke sends, deletes or spends. Release notes mention email draft approval only in passing

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNanoClawPokeEdge
Reliability16%207851NanoClaw +27
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28242NanoClaw +40
Agent ergonomics13%16.27030NanoClaw +40
Security & auth14%17.57424NanoClaw +50
Payments & pricing10%12.56030NanoClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87831NanoClaw +47
Transparency & trust7%8.86558NanoClaw +7
Negative events≤15-50
TotalB 68.3/100F 37.6/100

Facts side by side

FactNanoClawPoke
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorNanoCo, Inc.The Interaction Company of California Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The poke npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-092026-06-25
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-03-17
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-09-11
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity31k starsnone

Verdicts

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.

Poke

Hosted assistant that answers in Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS and acts in Gmail, Outlook, calendars and MCP servers. Plan prices and a status page are public. No approval settings, credential storage, model providers or retention periods are documented, and customer content trains models unless Maximum Privacy is selected.

Before you call either

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

Poke

  1. POST JSON to https://poke.com/api/v1/inbound/api-message with a Bearer key from Kitchen. Legacy pk_ keys work only on the deprecated /api/v1/inbound-sms/webhook
  2. Expect only {"success": true} back. Poke's answer goes to the owner's message thread, not to the caller
  3. Do not retry a POST blindly. No idempotency key is documented, and a repeated message may make Poke act twice
  4. Treat an API key as full access to the owner's mail, calendar and integrations. Create one key per automation and revoke it when done
  5. Avoid the prefilled integration link with apiKey in the query string for real secrets. Enter the key in the form or use npx poke@latest mcp add -k

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, NanoClaw or Poke?

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are NanoClaw and Poke open source?

NanoClaw is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Poke.

Other comparisons with NanoClaw or Poke

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