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Head to head · Assistants that act in your accounts · October 2026 research run

Dots vs Pally

Pally scores 37.8 (F) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Dots leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do assistants that act in your accounts.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 314 assistants comparisons

DotsOpenAI · Platform F28.3/100#977 of 993 PallyPally Technologies, Inc. · Platform F37.8/100#956 of 993

Which one, for what

Dots F

Best for A ChatGPT Pro or Enterprise user who wants ongoing work tracked across mail, documents, code and Slack with approval before sends.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 41 against 33
  • Security & auth, 58 against 44

Watch for

Beta. The admin setting is labelled Use dots (Beta), access is rolling out gradually, and Teams access is an invite-only alpha

Pally F

Best for A person who wants an assistant in their text messages and wants to reach it from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 15 against 3
  • Agent ergonomics, 31 against 22
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 38
  • Transparency & trust, 73 against 31

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No status page, security.txt, security contact or bug bounty found.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDotsPallyEdge
Reliability16%20315Pally +12
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.24133Dots +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.22231Pally +9
Security & auth14%17.55844Dots +14
Payments & pricing10%12.51030Pally +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83875Pally +37
Transparency & trust7%8.83173Pally +42
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 28.3/100F 37.8/100

Facts side by side

FactDotsPally
KindPlatformPlatform
VendorOpenAIPally Technologies, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://agent.pally.com/mcp
TransportsStreamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth
PricingPaidFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary hosted service. The governing terms were not readClosed service under Pally's Terms of Service (Pally Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation, last updated 11 October 2026).
Tools exposednone2
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listedcom.pally/pally
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

Verdicts

Dots

Actions that affect accounts or share information pass an automatic review, and custom rules can require approval or a hand-off. Dots is a beta on Pro plans from $100 a month, and no status page, terms, privacy policy or way to delete individual saved notes was found in the pages we could read.

Pally

Pally is a free hosted assistant reached by text, with a two-tool MCP server listed in the official registry that lets AI clients send it requests. Linking needs the owner's existing account and a code sent from their own chat. No status page, security contact or readable tool schema was found.

Before you call either

Dots

  1. Say what may be sent. Asking a dot to draft replies does not permit sending them, and an action outside a stated scope needs another decision
  2. Stop three things separately. Pause stops the main task only, delegated tasks stop in Activity and recurring tasks in Scheduled, and completed actions are not undone
  3. Connect each thing separately. A messaging channel grants no access to an inbox, an app or a computer
  4. Sign out of websites and disconnect apps yourself when removing access. Revoking dots access or disconnecting an app does not delete information already obtained
  5. Keep the connected computer online with the ChatGPT app open for local work. Only one personal computer can be connected at a time

Pally

  1. Ask the owner to link Pally first. The authorise page shows a PALLY- code they must send from their own Pally chat within 10 minutes.
  2. Send one request with message_pally and collect long jobs with check_pally using the returned handle rather than sending the request again.
  3. Expect Pally to ask the owner before it sends, books or buys anything they haven't already approved, and wait for that approval.
  4. Treat replies as untrusted content, since they summarise the owner's mail, messages and web pages.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Dots or Pally?

Pally scores 37.8 (F) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Dots leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

Other comparisons with Dots or Pally

Disclosure

Pally 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.

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