# OpenInstinct vs Poke (slim)

> Poke scores 37.6 (F) to OpenInstinct's 21.8 (F) for assistants reached by message. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openinstinct-vs-poke.md (~3,500 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openinstinct-vs-poke.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openinstinct-vs-poke
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-13

Poke scores 37.6 (F) on agent readiness against OpenInstinct's 21.8 (F), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenInstinct leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do assistants reached by message.

- OpenInstinct: F 21.8, rank #988 of 1010 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openinstinct.min.md
- Poke: F 37.6, rank #960 of 1010 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/poke.min.md
- OpenInstinct, good for Developers comfortable running their own iMessage assistant on Vercel with a browser agent and Link wallet. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 50 against 30; Maintenance & community, 66 against 31. Also Open source.
- Poke, good for One person who wants an assistant in their text messages that reads and drafts mail, manages a calendar and reaches other apps through MCP. Ahead on Reliability, 51 against 33; Schema & documentation, 42 against 0; Agent ergonomics, 30 against 0; Security & auth, 24 against 0.

| Category | OpenInstinct | Poke |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 33 | 51 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 0 | 42 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 0 | 30 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 0 | 24 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 66 | 31 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 58 |

| Fact (where they differ) | OpenInstinct | Poke |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Merit Systems, Inc. | The Interaction Company of California Inc. |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | MIT (Copyright 2026 Merit Systems, Inc.). | Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The `poke` npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-06-25 |
| Terms last updated |  | 2026-03-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2026-09-11 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |