# Poke vs QwenPaw

> QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) to Poke's 37.6 (F) for assistant proactive. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-12

QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do assistant proactive.

- Poke: grade F, 37.6/100, rank #955 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/poke.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/poke.json
- QwenPaw: grade B, 62.2/100, rank #454 of 986. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwenpaw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qwenpaw.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 190 assistants comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Poke (F)

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.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where QwenPaw loses 3 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

### QwenPaw (B)

Good 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 51
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 42
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 30
- Security & auth, 60 against 24
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 31

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

| Category | Weight | Poke | QwenPaw | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 51 | 70 | QwenPaw +19 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 68 | QwenPaw +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 30 | 67 | QwenPaw +37 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 24 | 60 | QwenPaw +36 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | QwenPaw +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 31 | 73 | QwenPaw +42 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 56 | Poke +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **37.6 · F** | **62.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Poke | QwenPaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Agent harness |
| Vendor | The Interaction Company of California Inc. | AgentScope |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The `poke` npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-06-25 | 2026-09-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-17 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-11 | no document linked |
| 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 |  |
| Popularity | none | 36k stars |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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`

### 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, Poke or QwenPaw?

QwenPaw scores 62.2 (B) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Are Poke and QwenPaw open source?

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


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "poke", "b": "qwenpaw"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare poke qwenpaw`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/poke.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qwenpaw.json

## Other comparisons with Poke or QwenPaw

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