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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

OpenClaw vs PicoClaw

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against PicoClaw's 46.1 (D), 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

OpenClawOpenClaw Foundation · Agent harness B67.1/100#270 of 986 PicoClawSipeed · Agent harness D46.1/100#879 of 986

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 54
  • Schema & documentation, 84 against 51
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 66
  • Security & auth, 74 against 51
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 22
  • Transparency & trust, 68 against 56

Watch for

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

PicoClaw D

Best for A person who wants a chat-app assistant on a cheap Linux board, an old Android phone or a home server, with reminders, web search and file memory, and who accepts running software its maker calls pre-production.

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No commit on main since 19 August 2026 and no release since v0.3.1 on 3 July 2026. An issue of 6 October calls the repository unmaintained, with no reply

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOpenClawPicoClawEdge
Reliability16%207554OpenClaw +21
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28451OpenClaw +33
Agent ergonomics13%16.27766OpenClaw +11
Security & auth14%17.57451OpenClaw +23
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88622OpenClaw +64
Transparency & trust7%8.86856OpenClaw +12
Negative events≤15-8-7
TotalB 67.1/100D 46.1/100

Facts side by side

FactOpenClawPicoClaw
KindAgent harnessAgent harness
VendorOpenClaw FoundationSipeed
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITMIT
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-122026-07-03
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno 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 stars30k stars

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.

PicoClaw

Self-hosted under the MIT licence, with 19 documented chat channels, scheduled and heartbeat tasks, and local file memory. The repository has had no commit since 19 August 2026 and no release since 3 July, and 15 CVEs are listed against it with no advisory or security policy from the project.

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

PicoClaw

  1. Set allow_from to the owner's user ID on every channel before starting the gateway. An empty list accepts messages from anyone
  2. Set tools.exec.allow_remote to false unless chats must run shell commands. The shipped default is true, whatever docs/guides/configuration.md says
  3. Set isolation.enabled to true on Linux (needs bwrap) or run in a container. The deny patterns do not inspect child processes
  4. Use PICOCLAW_KEY_PASSPHRASE for credential encryption. One docs page names PICOCLAW_CREDENTIAL_PASSPHRASE, which the source does not read
  5. Treat the README's ClawdChat line (read a remote skill file and follow it) as untrusted third-party instructions

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, OpenClaw or PicoClaw?

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against PicoClaw's 46.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Are OpenClaw and PicoClaw open source?

Yes. OpenClaw is open source (MIT). PicoClaw is open source (MIT).

Other comparisons with OpenClaw or PicoClaw

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