# NanoClaw vs Poke

> NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) to Poke's 37.6 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-poke
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-poke.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-poke.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-poke.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

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

- NanoClaw: grade B, 68.3/100, rank #229 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nanoclaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nanoclaw.json
- Poke: grade F, 37.6/100, rank #955 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/poke.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/poke.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

### NanoClaw (B)

Good 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)

Good 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

| Category | Weight | NanoClaw | Poke | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 78 | 51 | NanoClaw +27 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 42 | NanoClaw +40 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 30 | NanoClaw +40 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 74 | 24 | NanoClaw +50 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | NanoClaw +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 31 | NanoClaw +47 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 58 | NanoClaw +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.3 · B** | **37.6 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | NanoClaw | Poke |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent harness | Platform |
| Vendor | NanoCo, Inc. | The Interaction Company of California Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The `poke` npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-06-25 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-03-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-11 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 31k stars | none |

## 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.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with NanoClaw or Poke

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