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

OpenClaw vs Orbits

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (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

OpenClawOpenClaw Foundation · Agent harness B67.1/100#270 of 1010 OrbitsNemus AI, Inc. · Platform F15.6/100#997 of 1010

Which one, for what

OpenClaw B

Best for A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with their choice of model and files they can read and delete.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 75 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 84 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 0
  • Security & auth, 74 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 54
  • Transparency & trust, 68 against 43

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

Without configuration the default is full access. Host exec runs with no approval and sandboxing is off

Orbits F

Best for Families who want one shared assistant for calendars, lists, meals, chores and household email.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where OpenClaw loses 8 points for them

Watch for

No public agent API, as llms.txt states.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOpenClawOrbitsEdge
Reliability16%207515OpenClaw +60
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28410OpenClaw +74
Agent ergonomics13%16.2770OpenClaw +77
Security & auth14%17.5740OpenClaw +74
Payments & pricing10%12.56020OpenClaw +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88654OpenClaw +32
Transparency & trust7%8.86843OpenClaw +25
Negative events≤15-80
TotalB 67.1/100F 15.6/100

Facts side by side

FactOpenClawOrbits
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorOpenClaw FoundationNemus AI, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreePaid
x402nono
LicenceMITClosed service under the Orbits Terms of Service (Nemus AI, Inc.).
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-122026-10-13
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
Popularity392k starsnone

Verdicts

OpenClaw

Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with state, memory and credentials kept on the owner's machine and no paid tier. A fresh install runs tools on the host with full access, no approval prompt and no sandbox, and the project has published 722 security advisories since January 2026, 14 of them critical.

Orbits

Orbits is a family household app whose assistant, Bit, runs shared calendars, lists and meals, reads household email and places restaurant calls after approval, with iOS releases every week or two. No outside agent can call it, prices appear only as App Store in-app purchases, and no status page, security contact or named subprocessors were found.

Before you call either

OpenClaw

  1. Set a session permission mode of guarded or workspace, or tools.exec.mode, before connecting mail. The default runs host commands without approval
  2. Turn on agents.defaults.sandbox for any agent that reads mail, web pages or attachments. Sandboxing is off by default
  3. Set tools.message.crossContext.allowAcrossProviders and allowWithinProvider to false to confine sends to the current conversation
  4. Route incoming mail to a restricted reader agent, as the IMAP and Gmail guides show, and deny gateway, cron, sessions_spawn and sessions_send for it
  5. Run openclaw security audit after setup, and treat the Gateway token as an owner credential. POST /tools/invoke accepts it with full operator access

Orbits

  1. Don't plan to call Orbits from another agent. llms.txt says no public agent API is offered.
  2. Tell the owner the assistant needs an Orbits subscription bought in the app, and that any trial appears only at purchase.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, OpenClaw or Orbits?

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are OpenClaw and Orbits open source?

OpenClaw is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Orbits.

Other comparisons with OpenClaw or Orbits

Disclosure

Orbits 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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