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

OpenClaw vs Zapia

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (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

OpenClawOpenClaw Foundation · Agent harness B67.1/100#270 of 1010 ZapiaBrainlogic AI S.A.S. · Platform F17.3/100#995 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 0
  • Agent ergonomics, 77 against 0
  • Security & auth, 74 against 3
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 56
  • Transparency & trust, 68 against 59

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

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 OpenClaw loses 8 points for them

Watch for

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOpenClawZapiaEdge
Reliability16%207515OpenClaw +60
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2840OpenClaw +84
Agent ergonomics13%16.2770OpenClaw +77
Security & auth14%17.5743OpenClaw +71
Payments & pricing10%12.56030OpenClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88656OpenClaw +30
Transparency & trust7%8.86859OpenClaw +9
Negative events≤15-80
TotalB 67.1/100F 17.3/100

Facts side by side

FactOpenClawZapia
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorOpenClaw FoundationBrainlogic AI S.A.S.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth 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 documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-122026-10-12
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
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.

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

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

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, OpenClaw or Zapia?

OpenClaw scores 67.1 (B) on agent readiness against Zapia's 17.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are OpenClaw and Zapia open source?

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

Other comparisons with OpenClaw 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.

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