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

Orbits vs QwenPaw

QwenPaw scores 62.2 (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

Which one, for what

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 QwenPaw loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No public agent API, as llms.txt states.

QwenPaw B

Best for One person who wants an assistant on Chinese and Western chat apps with scheduled digests, a consumer mailbox and file-based memory, on their own machine and with a model of their choice.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 68 against 10
  • Agent ergonomics, 67 against 0
  • Security & auth, 60 against 0
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 73 against 54
  • Transparency & trust, 56 against 43

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

Usage data is on by default, qwenpaw init --defaults accepts it without a prompt, and the opt-out variable is absent from the README and docs

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOrbitsQwenPawEdge
Reliability16%201570QwenPaw +55
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.21068QwenPaw +58
Agent ergonomics13%16.2067QwenPaw +67
Security & auth14%17.5060QwenPaw +60
Payments & pricing10%12.52060QwenPaw +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85473QwenPaw +19
Transparency & trust7%8.84356QwenPaw +13
Negative events≤150-3
TotalF 15.6/100B 62.2/100

Facts side by side

FactOrbitsQwenPaw
KindPlatformAgent harness
VendorNemus AI, Inc.AgentScope
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPaidFree
x402nono
LicenceClosed service under the Orbits Terms of Service (Nemus AI, Inc.).Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-10-132026-09-11
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
Popularitynone36k 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.

QwenPaw

Mail tools ask for approval by default, automatic mail handling may not delete permanently, and the security docs list what each sandbox backend fails to enforce. Usage data is sent by default, the default approval level passes every tool call no rule flags, and no privacy policy or security advisory is published.

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.

QwenPaw

  1. Set QWENPAW_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=true before qwenpaw init --defaults or qwenpaw app. Both send usage data without asking
  2. Set approval_level to STRICT or SMART in agent.json. The default AUTO runs every tool call no guard rule flags
  3. Set dm_policy and group_policy to allowlist with allow_from on each channel. Both default to open
  4. Set QWENPAW_AUTH_ENABLED=true before binding beyond 127.0.0.1. Requests from localhost skip login even then
  5. Keep mail tools on ask for send_message, delete_message and delete_thread, and turn on Mail Access Control with automatic handling

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Orbits or QwenPaw?

QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Orbits's 15.6 (F), and leads in every scored category.

Are Orbits and QwenPaw open source?

No open-source release is listed for Orbits. QwenPaw is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Orbits or QwenPaw

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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