Polabot

Comparison · Checked on

Polabot vs OpenClaw

OpenClaw calls itself “the AI that really does things”: a free, MIT-licensed assistant that runs a gateway on your own machine and answers you in the chat apps you already use. It is stewarded by the OpenClaw Foundation, a US non-profit, and is the most-starred project in this space. Polabot shares the “runs on your own computer” idea but is a packaged app with a team of bots, its own chat, an iPhone app and an optional paid cloud.

Who each one is for

Polabot is for

People who want a team of bots in an app made for it, with group chats, a sessions board, an iPhone app and sync, on the Claude Code, Codex, Gemini or Grok plan they already have, without running a server.

OpenClaw is for

Developers and tinkerers who want one assistant they can reach from WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage or Signal, who want any model including local ones, and who are comfortable running and securing a gateway.

Feature by feature

Polabot and OpenClaw, feature by feature
FeaturePolabotOpenClaw
What it isA desktop and iPhone app for a team of always-on AI “bear bots” that work on your own computers.A personal AI assistant that runs on your hardware and answers in your chat apps: “The AI that really does things.”
Made by · licensePolabot, an independent product. The desktop app is built on the open-source OpenMausBot (Apache-2.0), with parts adapted from Nuphos (Apache-2.0).The OpenClaw Foundation, a US 501(c)(3) non-profit. MIT license.
ComputersmacOS and Windows apps. Also runs headless on a Mac mini or a cloud PC.macOS, Windows, Linux and WSL2, with desktop apps for macOS 15+, Windows 10/11 and Linux.
PhoneiPhone app, through TestFlight first. It can watch and take over a computer’s screen.iOS and Android companion “nodes”. Store availability: not stated.
Where you talk to itThe Polabot app on desktop and iPhone: a chat per bot, group chats, and a sessions board for every running session.WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, Signal, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, WebChat and more; 29 channels per its site.
AI models and who bills themRuns the official Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and Grok tools on your computer, signed in to your own subscriptions. Several accounts with automatic failover. No per-token bill from Polabot.Your own API keys for many providers, local models (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, vLLM, SGLang), or sign-in with a Claude or ChatGPT/Codex subscription. The docs recommend API keys for shared automation.
Several bots, group chatsYes. Each bear has a class, its own instructions, tools and AI account. Bears talk to each other in group chats.Several isolated agents on one gateway, bound to channels, accounts or groups; agents can message each other. A group chat is bound to one agent.
Schedules and triggersDaily, every few minutes or a cron line. Webhooks and an API; while the computer sleeps, deliveries wait up to 72 hours.A built-in scheduler, hooks and authenticated webhooks.
Connected apps and MCPGmail, Outlook, GitHub, Cloudflare, Railway, Notion, Slack, Stripe, Google Calendar, Discord, X and more. Anything else through MCP.Skills and the ClawHub marketplace. MCP both ways: it uses MCP servers and can run as one.
Using a computer and browserA bot can look, click and type on the computer and in a browser when there is no API.Browser control through an agent-only browser, or your signed-in Chrome through DevTools MCP. Tools run on the host unless sandboxing is set up.
Where your data livesBots, their work and your files stay on your computers. Polabot Cloud keeps your sign-in, devices and synced bot settings and memory, and relays requests.“State, memory, and credentials live on your hardware” (~/.openclaw). A daily version check by default; feature statistics are opt-in.
Self-hostingThe bots always run on your own machines. Polabot Cloud (sign-in, sync, relay) is a hosted service; there is no self-hosted version of it.Self-hosted by design: the gateway runs on your machine or server and binds to loopback by default.
PriceFree ($0, one computer). Pro $12 a month ($9 billed yearly). Max $29 a month ($22 billed yearly). Cloud PC add-on from $25 a month.Free: “No subscription. No hosted tier. No token.” You pay your model provider.

Pricing

Polabot. Free costs nothing and covers one computer. Pro is $12 a month (or $108 a year) for three computers, remote access and social automations; Max is $29 a month (or $264 a year) for ten computers, five spaces and the ads suite. Every new account starts with a 14-day Pro trial without a card. Your AI subscriptions are billed by their providers, not by Polabot.

OpenClaw. OpenClaw is free and MIT licensed; its site says there is no enterprise edition and no paid version. What you pay for is the model: API usage with your own keys, nothing with local models, or the limits of a Claude or ChatGPT subscription you sign in with.

Privacy and where your data lives

Polabot. The bots run on your computers, so their conversations, files and what they do on screen stay there. Prompts go straight from your computer to your AI provider under your own account. Polabot Cloud stores your account, devices and the bot settings and memory you choose to sync, and relays requests; webhook payloads are held only while queued, for at most 72 hours. See the privacy policy.

OpenClaw. State, memory and credentials stay on your own hardware, in ~/.openclaw, with per-agent session storage. Messages go through the chat apps you connect, under those apps’ own policies. The security guide asks you to treat inbound messages as untrusted, notes that OpenClaw “is not a hostile multi-tenant security boundary”, and provides openclaw security audit.

Self-hosting

Polabot. You run the bots yourself, on a Mac, a Windows PC, a Mac mini that stays on, or a cloud PC. The cloud part (Google sign-in, sync between devices, remote access and the webhook relay) is run by Polabot and cannot be self-hosted.

OpenClaw. You always host it: install with a script or npm i -g openclaw, run openclaw onboard, and keep the gateway running on a computer or server. The gateway binds to loopback by default, unknown senders get a pairing code, and the docs include an exposure runbook.

Platforms

Polabot. Desktop apps for macOS and Windows, and an iPhone app (TestFlight first). There is no Android or Linux app.

OpenClaw. macOS, Windows, Linux and WSL2, with desktop apps for macOS 15+, Windows 10/11 and Linux, and iOS and Android companion nodes. You talk to it mostly through chat apps rather than its own app.

When to choose OpenClaw instead

  • You want to talk to your assistant inside WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage or Signal.
  • You want local models or any API provider, and to pay nothing for the software.
  • You run Linux, and you are comfortable securing a gateway and its skills yourself.

When Polabot fits better

  • You want a team of bots in one app, with group chats and a board of every running session.
  • You want an iPhone app, sync between computers and remote access without running a server.
  • You want to use Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI or Grok as their official tools, with failover between accounts.

Sources

Checked on 14 November 2026 on each vendor’s own website, documentation, repository and app store listing. Products change often; if something here is out of date, write to hello@polabot.app and we will fix it. “Not stated” means we could not find it on the vendor’s own pages.

  1. OpenClaw — website openclaw.ai
  2. OpenClaw on GitHub github.com/openclaw/openclaw
  3. OpenClaw releases github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases
  4. OpenClaw docs docs.openclaw.ai
  5. OpenClaw docs — Platforms docs.openclaw.ai/platforms
  6. OpenClaw docs — Anthropic provider docs.openclaw.ai/providers/anthropic
  7. OpenClaw docs — OpenAI provider docs.openclaw.ai/providers/openai
  8. OpenClaw docs — Model providers docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/model-providers
  9. OpenClaw docs — Multi-agent docs.openclaw.ai/concepts/multi-agent
  10. OpenClaw docs — Automation docs.openclaw.ai/automation
  11. OpenClaw docs — MCP docs.openclaw.ai/tools/mcp
  12. OpenClaw docs — Browser docs.openclaw.ai/tools/browser
  13. OpenClaw docs — Where things live on disk docs.openclaw.ai/help/faq/where-things-live-on-disk
  14. OpenClaw docs — Gateway security docs.openclaw.ai/gateway/security
  15. Polabot: this website’s home page, pricing and privacy policy.

Product names belong to their owners. Polabot is not affiliated with or endorsed by xAI, Cursor, the OpenClaw Foundation, Nous Research, NanoCo, the Agentic AI Foundation or the OpenMausBot project.