# Poke vs Town

> Town scores 48.7 (D) to Poke's 37.6 (F) for proactive personal assistants. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-town
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-town.md (~3,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-town.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-town.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: 2026-10-13

Town scores 48.7 (D) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on reliability and schema & documentation. Both do proactive personal assistants.

- Poke: grade F, 37.6/100, rank #960 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/poke.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/poke.json
- Town: grade D, 48.7/100, rank #834 of 1010. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/town.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/town.json
- Best AI personal assistants that act for one person: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md
- All 834 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.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 51 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 42 against 33

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

### Town (D)

Good for: An owner who wants a mail and calendar assistant whose routines other systems can trigger.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 49 against 30
- Security & auth, 79 against 24
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 31
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 58

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The privacy policy describes training with an opt-out and the trust page says training is opt-in.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Poke | Town | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 51 | 35 | Poke +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 42 | 33 | Poke +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 30 | 49 | Town +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 24 | 79 | Town +55 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 31 | 60 | Town +29 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 63 | Town +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **37.6 · F** | **48.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Poke | Town |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | Platform |
| Vendor | The Interaction Company of California Inc. | Town.com, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Poke's Terms of Service. The `poke` npm package (CLI and Node.js SDK) declares MIT | Closed service under Town's Terms of Service (Town.com, Inc., updated 21 July 2026). |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-06-25 | 2026-10-10 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-17 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-11 |  |
| 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 |  |

## 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.

**Town.** Town is a hosted assistant that works across the owner's mail, calendar and work apps, and other systems can start its routines through per-routine webhooks with rotatable secrets, idempotency keys and documented errors. A caller can't read a run's result. The privacy policy and trust page disagree on whether training is on by default.

## 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`

### Town

1. Start a Town routine with POST to its webhook URL, Authorization Bearer whsec_ secret, and application/json or text/plain. Expect 202 only.
2. Send X-Town-Idempotency-Key with a stable event id on every retry so Town doesn't start a second run.
3. Treat 404 as wrong secret, disabled endpoint or missing endpoint alike, and ask the owner to check Routine Settings rather than retrying.
4. Send account_email only if the owner allowed the override. It must match a connected account in full and can't widen the routine's scope.
5. Ask the owner to keep routines that act on webhook input in approval-required mode, as Town's own docs advise.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Poke or Town?

Town scores 48.7 (D) on agent readiness against Poke's 37.6 (F), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Poke leads on reliability and schema & documentation.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Poke or Town

- [asaply vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-poke.md)
- [asaply vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asaply-vs-town.md)
- [Asmi vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-poke.md)
- [Asmi vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/asmi-vs-town.md)
- [Boba vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-poke.md)
- [Boba vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boba-vs-town.md)
- [Brea vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-poke.md)
- [Brea vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brea-vs-town.md)
- [Del vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/del-vs-poke.md)
- [Del vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/del-vs-town.md)
- [HireAlpha vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hirealpha-vs-poke.md)
- [HireAlpha vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hirealpha-vs-town.md)
- [OpenInstinct vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openinstinct-vs-poke.md)
- [OpenInstinct vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openinstinct-vs-town.md)
- [Orbits vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orbits-vs-poke.md)
- [Orbits vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orbits-vs-town.md)
- [Orchid vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orchid-ai-vs-poke.md)
- [Orchid vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/orchid-ai-vs-town.md)
- [Poke vs szn](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-szn.md)
- [Poke vs Tab](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-tab-bot.md)
- [Poke vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-zapia.md)
- [szn vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/szn-vs-town.md)
- [Tab vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tab-bot-vs-town.md)
- [Town vs Zapia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-zapia.md)
- [AstrBot vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-poke.md)
- [AstrBot vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/astrbot-vs-town.md)
- [Boski vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-poke.md)
- [Boski vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/boski-vs-town.md)
- [Caddy vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-poke.md)
- [Caddy vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/caddy-app-vs-town.md)
- [CowAgent vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-poke.md)
- [CowAgent vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cowagent-vs-town.md)
- [folk vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/folk-nozomio-vs-poke.md)
- [folk vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/folk-nozomio-vs-town.md)
- [GAIA vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-poke.md)
- [GAIA vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gaia-vs-town.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-poke.md)
- [Gemini Spark vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-spark-vs-town.md)
- [Grok Bot vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-poke.md)
- [Grok Bot vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grok-bot-vs-town.md)
- [Haven vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-poke.md)
- [Haven vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/haven-vs-town.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-poke.md)
- [Hermes Agent vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hermes-agent-vs-town.md)
- [Instinct vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-poke.md)
- [Instinct vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/instinct-vs-town.md)
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- [IronClaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ironclaw-vs-town.md)
- [Leon vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/leon-vs-poke.md)
- [Leon vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/leon-vs-town.md)
- [Lindy vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-poke.md)
- [Lindy vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lindy-vs-town.md)
- [nanobot vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-poke.md)
- [nanobot vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanobot-vs-town.md)
- [NanoClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [NanoClaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nanoclaw-vs-town.md)
- [Dots vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-dots-vs-poke.md)
- [Dots vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-dots-vs-town.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [OpenClaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openclaw-vs-town.md)
- [PicoClaw vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/picoclaw-vs-poke.md)
- [PicoClaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/picoclaw-vs-town.md)
- [Poke vs QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-qwenpaw.md)
- [Poke vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [Poke vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [QwenPaw vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qwenpaw-vs-town.md)
- [Town vs ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-zeroclaw.md)
- [Town vs Zo Computer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-zo-computer.md)
- [Natura tinyNature vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/natura-vs-poke.md)
- [Natura tinyNature vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/natura-vs-town.md)
- [Pally vs Poke](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pally-vs-poke.md)
- [Pally vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pally-vs-town.md)
- [Poke vs Tomo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-tomo.md)
- [Poke vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-wajo.md)
- [Tomo vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tomo-vs-town.md)
- [Town vs Wajo (Fo)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/town-vs-wajo.md)
- [Poke vs Talorys](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/poke-vs-talorys.md)
- [Talorys vs Town](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/talorys-vs-town.md)

## Disclosure

- Town 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.