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Head to head · Assistant proactive · October 2026 research run

PicoClaw vs Poke

PicoClaw scores 46.1 (D) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on maintenance & community. Both do assistant proactive.

Best AI personal assistants that act for one person · All 190 assistants comparisons

PicoClawSipeed · Agent harness D46.1/100#879 of 986 PokeThe Interaction Company of California Inc. · Platform F37.6/100#955 of 986

Which one, for what

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

  • Schema & documentation, 51 against 42
  • Agent ergonomics, 66 against 30
  • Security & auth, 51 against 24
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30

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

Poke F

Best 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

  • Maintenance & community, 31 against 22

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

No documented setting for which actions need approval before Poke sends, deletes or spends. Release notes mention email draft approval only in passing

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runPicoClawPokeEdge
Reliability16%205451PicoClaw +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25142PicoClaw +9
Agent ergonomics13%16.26630PicoClaw +36
Security & auth14%17.55124PicoClaw +27
Payments & pricing10%12.56030PicoClaw +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82231Poke +9
Transparency & trust7%8.85658Poke +2
Negative events≤15-70
TotalD 46.1/100F 37.6/100

Facts side by side

FactPicoClawPoke
KindAgent harnessPlatform
VendorSipeedThe Interaction Company of California Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The poke npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-07-032026-06-25
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-03-17
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-09-11
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity30k starsnone

Verdicts

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.

Poke

Hosted assistant that answers in Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS and acts in Gmail, Outlook, calendars and MCP servers. Plan prices and a status page are public. No approval settings, credential storage, model providers or retention periods are documented, and customer content trains models unless Maximum Privacy is selected.

Before you call either

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

Poke

  1. POST JSON to https://poke.com/api/v1/inbound/api-message with a Bearer key from Kitchen. Legacy pk_ keys work only on the deprecated /api/v1/inbound-sms/webhook
  2. Expect only {"success": true} back. Poke's answer goes to the owner's message thread, not to the caller
  3. Do not retry a POST blindly. No idempotency key is documented, and a repeated message may make Poke act twice
  4. Treat an API key as full access to the owner's mail, calendar and integrations. Create one key per automation and revoke it when done
  5. Avoid the prefilled integration link with apiKey in the query string for real secrets. Enter the key in the form or use npx poke@latest mcp add -k

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, PicoClaw or Poke?

PicoClaw scores 46.1 (D) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on maintenance & community.

Are PicoClaw and Poke open source?

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

Other comparisons with PicoClaw or Poke

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