Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run
Dots vs QwenPaw
QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do assistant proactive.
Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons
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.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where QwenPaw loses 3 points for them
Watch for
Beta. The admin setting is labelled Use dots (Beta), access is rolling out gradually, and Teams access is an invite-only alpha
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.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 70 against 3
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 41
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 22
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 38
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 31
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source
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 | Dots | QwenPaw | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 3 | 70 | QwenPaw +67 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 41 | 68 | QwenPaw +27 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 22 | 67 | QwenPaw +45 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 58 | 60 | QwenPaw +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 10 | 60 | QwenPaw +50 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 38 | 73 | QwenPaw +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 31 | 56 | QwenPaw +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | F 28.3/100 | B 62.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Dots | QwenPaw |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | OpenAI | AgentScope |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service. The governing terms were not read | 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 | none | 36k stars |
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.
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
Dots
- 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
- 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
- Connect each thing separately. A messaging channel grants no access to an inbox, an app or a computer
- Sign out of websites and disconnect apps yourself when removing access. Revoking dots access or disconnecting an app does not delete information already obtained
- Keep the connected computer online with the ChatGPT app open for local work. Only one personal computer can be connected at a time
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, Dots or QwenPaw?
QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Dots's 28.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.
Are Dots and QwenPaw open source?
No open-source release is listed for Dots. QwenPaw is open source (Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with Dots or QwenPaw
- AstrBot vs Dots
- AstrBot vs QwenPaw
- CowAgent vs Dots
- CowAgent vs QwenPaw
- GAIA vs Dots
- GAIA vs QwenPaw
- Gemini Spark vs Dots
- Gemini Spark vs QwenPaw
- Grok Bot vs Dots
- Grok Bot vs QwenPaw
- Haven vs Dots
- Haven vs QwenPaw
- Hermes Agent vs Dots
- Hermes Agent vs QwenPaw
- Instinct vs Dots
- Instinct vs QwenPaw
- IronClaw vs Dots
- IronClaw vs QwenPaw
- Leon vs Dots
- Leon vs QwenPaw
- Lindy vs Dots
- Lindy vs QwenPaw
- nanobot vs Dots
- nanobot vs QwenPaw
- NanoClaw vs Dots
- NanoClaw vs QwenPaw
- Dots vs OpenClaw
- Dots vs PicoClaw
- Dots vs Poke
- Dots vs ZeroClaw
- Dots vs Zo Computer
- OpenClaw vs QwenPaw
- PicoClaw vs QwenPaw
- Poke vs QwenPaw
- QwenPaw vs ZeroClaw
- QwenPaw vs Zo Computer
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/openai-dots-vs-qwenpaw.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/openai-dots.json·/api/v1/tools/qwenpaw.json - From a terminal
anchor compare openai-dots qwenpaw(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "openai-dots", "b": "qwenpaw"}at/mcp, no key