Get an audit

Head to head · Assistants reached by message · October 2026 research run

NanoClaw vs Zapia

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Zapia's 17.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistants reached by message.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 834 assistants comparisons

NanoClawNanoCo, Inc. · Agent harness B68.3/100#229 of 1010 ZapiaBrainlogic AI S.A.S. · Platform F17.3/100#995 of 1010

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 15
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 0
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 0
  • Security & auth, 74 against 3
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 56
  • Transparency & trust, 65 against 59

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

Zapia F

Best for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking users who want an assistant over their mail, calendar, Drive and WhatsApp in an app.

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No API, MCP server or A2A endpoint, and the terms forbid unauthorised automated connections.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNanoClawZapiaEdge
Reliability16%207815NanoClaw +63
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2820NanoClaw +82
Agent ergonomics13%16.2700NanoClaw +70
Security & auth14%17.5743NanoClaw +71
Payments & pricing10%12.56030NanoClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87856NanoClaw +22
Transparency & trust7%8.86559NanoClaw +6
Negative events≤15-50
TotalB 68.3/100F 17.3/100

Facts side by side

FactNanoClawZapia
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorNanoCo, Inc.Brainlogic AI S.A.S.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITClosed service under Zapia's terms and conditions (Brainlogic AI SAS). No date was found on the terms.
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-092026-10-12
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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
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.

Zapia

Zapia is a personal assistant app for iOS, Android and the web with a free plan that isn't a trial, weekly iOS releases and explicit confirmation before anything that writes. No outside agent can call it, and no status page, security contact or hosting location was found.

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

Zapia

  1. Don't plan to call Zapia from another agent. It answers only in its own app and on the web, and the terms forbid unauthorised automated access.
  2. Tell the owner that Pro and Ultra trials become paid after 7 days unless cancelled in the app store.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, NanoClaw or Zapia?

NanoClaw scores 68.3 (B) on agent readiness against Zapia's 17.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are NanoClaw and Zapia open source?

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

Other comparisons with NanoClaw or Zapia

Disclosure

Zapia 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

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report