Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run
NanoClaw vs QwenPaw
NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against QwenPaw's 62.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistant proactive.
Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons
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 70
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 68
- Security & auth, 74 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 73
- Transparency & trust, 65 against 56
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
The Claude provider runs with permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions', so shell, file and web tools run inside the container with no prompt
QwenPaw B
Best for One person who wants an assistant on Chinese and Western chat apps with scheduled digests, a consumer mailbox and file-based memory, on their own machine and with a model of their choice.
Also in its favour
- Runs on your own machine
Watch for
Usage data is on by default, qwenpaw init --defaults accepts it without a prompt, and the opt-out variable is absent from the README and docs
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | NanoClaw | QwenPaw | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 78 | 70 | NanoClaw +8 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 82 | 68 | NanoClaw +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 70 | 67 | NanoClaw +3 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 74 | 60 | NanoClaw +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 78 | 73 | NanoClaw +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 65 | 56 | NanoClaw +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -3 | |
| Total | B 68.3/100 | B 62.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | NanoClaw | QwenPaw |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Agent harness | Agent harness |
| Vendor | NanoCo, Inc. | AgentScope |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-09-11 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 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 | 31k stars | 36k stars |
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.
QwenPaw
Mail tools ask for approval by default, automatic mail handling may not delete permanently, and the security docs list what each sandbox backend fails to enforce. Usage data is sent by default, the default approval level passes every tool call no rule flags, and no privacy policy or security advisory is published.
Before you call either
NanoClaw
- Install with
git cloneandbash nanoclaw.sh. There is no registry package, and setup needs Docker, Node 22 or later and a Claude or Codex credential - Set
NANOCLAW_EGRESS_LOCKDOWN=truebefore giving an agent credentials or an audience of strangers. The default leaves egress open - Put chats with different audiences in separate agent groups. Every session of a group shares one read-write workspace and memory tree
- Turn on per-request approval for a secret in the gateway when its use should wait for a person. It is off unless configured
- 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
QwenPaw
- Set
QWENPAW_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=truebeforeqwenpaw init --defaultsorqwenpaw app. Both send usage data without asking - Set
approval_leveltoSTRICTorSMARTinagent.json. The defaultAUTOruns every tool call no guard rule flags - Set
dm_policyandgroup_policytoallowlistwithallow_fromon each channel. Both default toopen - Set
QWENPAW_AUTH_ENABLED=truebefore binding beyond 127.0.0.1. Requests from localhost skip login even then - Keep mail tools on
askforsend_message,delete_messageanddelete_thread, and turn on Mail Access Control with automatic handling
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, NanoClaw or QwenPaw?
NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against QwenPaw's 62.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Are NanoClaw and QwenPaw open source?
Yes. NanoClaw is open source (MIT). QwenPaw is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with NanoClaw or QwenPaw
- AstrBot vs NanoClaw
- AstrBot vs QwenPaw
- CowAgent vs NanoClaw
- CowAgent vs QwenPaw
- GAIA vs NanoClaw
- GAIA vs QwenPaw
- Gemini Spark vs NanoClaw
- Gemini Spark vs QwenPaw
- Grok Bot vs NanoClaw
- Grok Bot vs QwenPaw
- Haven vs NanoClaw
- Haven vs QwenPaw
- Hermes Agent vs NanoClaw
- Hermes Agent vs QwenPaw
- Instinct vs NanoClaw
- Instinct vs QwenPaw
- IronClaw vs NanoClaw
- IronClaw vs QwenPaw
- Leon vs NanoClaw
- Leon vs QwenPaw
- Lindy vs NanoClaw
- Lindy vs QwenPaw
- nanobot vs NanoClaw
- nanobot vs QwenPaw
- NanoClaw vs Dots
- NanoClaw vs OpenClaw
- NanoClaw vs PicoClaw
- NanoClaw vs Poke
- NanoClaw vs ZeroClaw
- NanoClaw vs Zo Computer
- Dots vs QwenPaw
- OpenClaw vs QwenPaw
- PicoClaw vs QwenPaw
- Poke vs QwenPaw
- QwenPaw vs ZeroClaw
- QwenPaw vs Zo Computer
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/nanoclaw-vs-qwenpaw.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/nanoclaw.json·/api/v1/tools/qwenpaw.json - From a terminal
anchor compare nanoclaw qwenpaw(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "nanoclaw", "b": "qwenpaw"}at/mcp, no key