OpenClaw
Open-source, self-hosted AI agent that acts as a personal assistant through chat apps.
HN commenters like it as an always-on personal assistant they can message from Telegram, WhatsApp or Discord1234, running scheduled digests, life tracking and small business tasks.56789 The most common complaint is weak security1011121314, followed by bugginess and high token costs.1516171819
Why people recommend it
Personal assistant · 3
Used for everyday errands, journaling, calorie tracking, email and family tools.
“It really is eye-opening how powerful it is once you connect your life to it.”
“I used OpenClaw to make a health and wellness coach agent”
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“I use it a lot for personal stuff.”
Chat app control · 3
Can be run from Telegram, WhatsApp or Discord instead of a terminal.
“OpenClaw lets me to chat in TG and get things done without opening up a terminal.”
“I find the OpenClaw can prompt Claude Code better and keep it running for me without it stopping for stupid questions.”
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“What I love about OpenClaw is that I was able to send it a message on Discord with just this github URL”
Business automation · 3
Handles company lookups, cold outreach, backend operations and ecommerce monitoring.
“I run OpenClaw on a $4 VPS with read-only access to most of the accounts.”
“I use it personally for cold outreach - specifically list building, enriching, and qualifying.”
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“If you're building Shopify + AI automation, check out OpenClaw.”
Scheduled digests · 3
Good at recurring scraping, news and calendar summaries sent on a schedule.
“it works well for a certain limited category of tasks once you've set it up properly”
“I’ve found it useful for the digest and for findings papers without much effort.”
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“I have been _amazed_ at how effortless it is to setup.”
Cheap hardware · 3
Runs fine on a $4 VPS or an old mini PC.
“I run OpenClaw on a $4 VPS with read-only access to most of the accounts.”
“I use a repurposed HP Elitedesk 800 Mini from a decade ago for OpenClaw and it works just fine.”
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“OpenClaw from VPS is a fearless executor”
Depth for tinkerers · 3
Commenters call it deep, capable and fun to experiment with.
“OpenClaw is deeper with more capabilities.”
“What excites me the most right now is my experiments with OpenClaw / NanoClaw, I'm just having a blast.”
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“I think everyone should try the original version out”
Caveats and dissent
Security · 3
Many commenters don't trust it and run it isolated or avoid it.
“OpenClaw is a nightmare in terms of security”
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“Security wise I don't trust it at all so I had it running in a VM and local models.”
Bugs and fragility · 3
Reported as buggy and fragile, with updates breaking setups and agents bricking their config.
“my OpenClaw instance broke last week”
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“if agent bricks itself (often does with Openclaw if you give it access to change config)”
Token costs · 3
Its prompting and context system burns tokens, which makes API costs high.
“It was great and useful but the api costs were pretty high..”
“The prompting/memory/context system for OpenClaw chewed tokens and performed subpar for my usecase.”
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“didnt bloat context too much with system prompts (like openclaw)”
Messy codebase · 3
The code is described as large and messy, with many open bugs.
“That codebase is a nightmare. Just take a look at the hundred-plus pages of bugs on the Github repo.”
“my OpenClaw instance broke last week”
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“watching OpenClaw users burn $800-$3600/month on tokens, deal with 1,100+ malicious ClawHub skills”
Redundant tools · 3
Some find Claude Code or Codex already cover what they need.
“Especially with Codex App now, why do I need OpenClaw?”
“found it to be a much worse version of Claude Code.”
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Setup effort · 3
It takes effort to set up and learn its quirks.
“it works well for a certain limited category of tasks once you've set it up properly”
“I do believe it absolutely amazing product.”
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“I decided OpenClaw was too raw for me.”
Often compared with
4 moved from OpenClaw to Claude Code
5 moved from OpenClaw to Hermes
1 moved from OpenClaw to Claude
2 moved from OpenClaw to NanoClawZeroClaw5 comments mention both
3 moved from OpenClaw to ZeroClawPi6 comments mention both
2 moved from OpenClaw to Pi
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“We use AI agents for ecommerce backoffice — inventory alerts, ad monitoring, support triage.”
Threads where it came up
- Is anyone actually using OpenClaw? 23 mentions
- Migrate from OpenClaw 6 mentions
- OpenClaw 2.0, Accidentally 4 mentions
- Anthropic no longer allowing Claude Code subscriptions to be used with OpenClaw 3 mentions
- Sandboxes won't save you from OpenClaw 3 mentions
- Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio 2 mentions
Data: openclaw.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 54
“For the record I use OpenClaw but it has its own services (gmail address, phone number, etc.) and I don't give it any of mine”
“I spent unbelievable amounts of money on Opus tokens for OpenClaw”
“I used Kimi 2 (or 2.5) with my Openclaw and enjoyed it there”
“I did find it useful, but it wasn't as reliable.”
“I gave openclaw a bitcoin wallet and $100 to spend.”
“I've been running OpenClaw for a year--its been fine”
“something like OpenClaw (which I use a lot)”
“Openclaw happened so I started engineering a plugin for it”
“I ran an OpenClaw instance for a few months on a vm. It was fun but also very flaky.”
“OpenClaw was one example that fit the pattern”
“We used OpenClaw to run these experiments so that our scaffold was agnostic to the model provider.”
“This is very similar to the mjrathburn openclaw incident several months back”
“even OpenClaw, and I’ve yet to find a meaningful use of such an assistant.”
“Security wise I don't trust it at all so I had it running in a VM and local models.”
“It was great and useful but the api costs were pretty high..”
“OpenClaw from VPS is a fearless executor”
“nobody uses OpenClaw anymore and nobody is talking about "claws"”
“Does anyone have a good pro vs con for Pi vs OpenClaw?”
“My claw scrapes some APIs, receives some emails with job listings, and matches it all to my profile.”
“I run my OpenClaw on whatever is the latest GLM model”
“didnt bloat context too much with system prompts (like openclaw)”
“the crappy mechanism we have now is something like openCLAW.”
“the limitations/security of it kind of made it a novelty for me”
“haystack framework, which is a bit less of a messy basket case than Openclaw”
“things like claude-code, OpenClaw, and the occasional project I see mentioned here”
“OpenClaw needs to be built from the ground up.”
“That codebase is a nightmare. Just take a look at the hundred-plus pages of bugs on the Github repo.”
“a lot of the esoteric setups people have created with things like OpenClaw have become outdated as quickly as they were conceived”
“The future is you having an OpenClaw/Hermes agent connected to these native MCPs”
“I don't need OpenClaw running 24x7 trying to hack it's way into my gmail.”
“OpenClaw just felt... not what I wanted.”
“I use railway to host my openclaw like personal agent for friends and family”
“It was usable like any Openclaw agent.”
“OpenClaw is a nightmare in terms of security”
“There's definite tradeoffs when it comes using a remote agent service vs. setting up OpenClaw or Hermes on a Mac Mini”
“They already know OpenClaw”
“Especially with Codex App now, why do I need OpenClaw?”
“I don't understand people running OpenClaw. I just full shot a prompt to create a better clone.”
“I used OpenClaw -> Hermes -> my own thing now.”
“none of these projects inspire enough trust to justify being installed”
“What a mess that's turned into”
“I run OpenClaw on a $4 VPS with read-only access to most of the accounts.”
“OpenClaw’s security is weak”
“The prompting/memory/context system for OpenClaw chewed tokens and performed subpar for my usecase.”
“it works well for a certain limited category of tasks once you've set it up properly”
“I love it, it is like Claude on steroids”
“I’ve found it useful for the digest and for findings papers without much effort.”
“I tried but found it fragile and it's personality off putting.”
“I used it, found it buggy”
“It really is eye-opening how powerful it is once you connect your life to it.”
“This is simple, secure, and very cheap 'life coaching.'”
“OpenClaw lets me to chat in TG and get things done without opening up a terminal.”
“I find the OpenClaw can prompt Claude Code better and keep it running for me without it stopping for stupid questions.”
“I have been _amazed_ at how effortless it is to setup.”