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

Poke vs Tab

Poke scores 37.6 (F) on agent readiness against Tab's 10.7 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Tab leads on maintenance & community. Both do assistants reached by message.

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

PokeThe Interaction Company of California Inc. · Platform F37.6/100#960 of 1010 TabTerrasoft, Inc. · Platform F10.7/100#1003 of 1010

Which one, for what

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

  • Reliability, 51 against 5
  • Schema & documentation, 42 against 0
  • Agent ergonomics, 30 against 0
  • Security & auth, 24 against 4
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 0
  • Transparency & trust, 58 against 45

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

Tab F

Best for A person who wants a texting assistant that browses, calls and buys with tight checkout controls.

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 58 against 31

Watch for

Private beta behind a waitlist.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runPokeTabEdge
Reliability16%20515Poke +46
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2420Poke +42
Agent ergonomics13%16.2300Poke +30
Security & auth14%17.5244Poke +20
Payments & pricing10%12.5300Poke +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83158Tab +27
Transparency & trust7%8.85845Poke +13
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 37.6/100F 10.7/100

Facts side by side

FactPokeTab
KindPlatformPlatform
VendorThe Interaction Company of California Inc.Terrasoft, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The poke npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MITClosed service under Tab's Terms of Use (Terrasoft, Inc., effective 2 September 2026).
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-06-25none
Terms last updated2026-03-17
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-11
Customer content may train modelsyes
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes

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.

Tab

Tab is a private-beta texting assistant with a detailed security page on credential isolation and checkout binding, and a public updates page. No outside agent can call it, no price is published, and its privacy policy says nothing on training with user content.

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

Tab

  1. Don't plan to call Tab from another agent. It answers only the owner's Messages or WhatsApp thread.
  2. Tell the owner that access needs a waitlist place and no price is published.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Poke or Tab?

Poke scores 37.6 (F) on agent readiness against Tab's 10.7 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Tab leads on maintenance & community.

Other comparisons with Poke or Tab

Disclosure

Tab 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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