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

Orbits vs PicoClaw

PicoClaw scores 46.1 (D) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orbits leads on maintenance & community. Both do assistants reached by message.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 834 assistants comparisons

OrbitsNemus AI, Inc. · Platform F15.6/100#997 of 1010 PicoClawSipeed · Agent harness D46.1/100#883 of 1010

Which one, for what

Orbits F

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

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 54 against 22

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where PicoClaw loses 7 points for them

Watch for

No public agent API, as llms.txt states.

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.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 54 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 51 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 66 against 0
  • Security & auth, 51 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Transparency & trust, 56 against 43

Also in its favour

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

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 runOrbitsPicoClawEdge
Reliability16%201554PicoClaw +39
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21051PicoClaw +41
Agent ergonomics13%16.2066PicoClaw +66
Security & auth14%17.5051PicoClaw +51
Payments & pricing10%12.52060PicoClaw +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85422Orbits +32
Transparency & trust7%8.84356PicoClaw +13
Negative events≤150-7
TotalF 15.6/100D 46.1/100

Facts side by side

FactOrbitsPicoClaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorNemus AI, Inc.Sipeed
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceClosed service under the Orbits Terms of Service (Nemus AI, Inc.).MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-132026-07-03
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
Popularitynone30k stars

Verdicts

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.

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

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.

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, Orbits or PicoClaw?

PicoClaw scores 46.1 (D) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Orbits leads on maintenance & community.

Are Orbits and PicoClaw open source?

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

Other comparisons with Orbits or PicoClaw

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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