Rating certificate · AW/26-09/99226 Sept 2026
61of 100
ZeroClaw
ZeroClaw Labs · Personal & desktop agents
No. 3 of 3 in categorymedium confidenceTrust BOpen source
The Register / Personal & desktop agents / ZeroClaw
Register entry · Personal & desktop agents · updated 26 Sept 2026
ZeroClaw
ZeroClaw is a Rust rewrite of the OpenClaw-style personal assistant, shipped as a single static binary that runs on hardware from a Raspberry Pi to cloud VMs. It connects to many LLM providers (hosted or local) and to 30+ channels such as Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, Slack, Signal, Matrix and email, and acts through shell, browser, HTTP, hardware and MCP tools. It defaults to a supervised autonomy level with workspace boundaries and an auto-detected OS sandbox, and has a web dashboard. It is dual-licensed MIT OR Apache-2.0 and developed by ZeroClaw Labs with a large contributor base.
What reviewers and users praise
- Small resource footprint compared with OpenClaw (independent reviews, community reports)
- Security-by-default posture: supervised autonomy, sandboxing and workspace scoping
- Some users report it as stable and easy to run on a small VPS
What they criticise
- Several users report bugs, tool-calling failures and freezes, especially with local models
- Smaller plugin/integration ecosystem than OpenClaw; Rust makes extension harder for some
- Limited visibility into running tools in early versions (HN)
- Impersonation sites and forks caused confusion; the official repo was briefly unavailable (404) in late March 2026
Experts vs the crowdcrowd cooler by 20
Experts67
Crowd47
| Price | Free |
|---|---|
| Use it via | CLI, Chat apps, Web app |
| Runs on | linux, macos, windows |
| Licence | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Updated | Evidence collected 26 Sept 2026 |
How the rating was worked out
Weights for Personal & desktop agents: adoption 30%, experts 35%, crowd 35%. Pillars without enough evidence are left out and the others re-weighted. The method.
| Adoption & momentumweight 30% | 71 | GitHub stars 33k → 76 · 3 releases in 90 days → 60reach × 0.7 + momentum × 0.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Expertsindependent reviews · weight 35% | 67 | 3 independent reviews (2 positive · 1 mixed · 0 negative), averaged toward 50 for small samples. |
| Crowdcommunity sample · weight 35% | 47 | 9 dated posts from hackernews, reddit: 3 positive · 2 mixed · 4 negative (positive + ½ mixed) ÷ n, averaged toward 50 for small samples |
| Rating | 61 | medium confidence (3 of 3 pillars, 9 community posts). |
Trust & safety
Seven dimensions graded A–D from documented facts. Overall: B.
A
Permission model
Default autonomy is Supervised (low-risk runs, medium-risk asks the operator, high-risk blocked); ReadOnly/Supervised/Full levels documented. OS sandbox is auto-detected by default (Landlock/Bubblewrap/Firejail/Docker on Linux, Seatbelt on macOS, AppContainer on Windows) and falls back to none if unavailable. source
A
Data access scope
Agent operates within a configured workspace; file_read, file_write and shell refuse paths outside it unless workspace_only = false; forbidden_paths defaults include /etc and /sys; command allowlists; private/local HTTP targets blocked by default. source
A
Data storage
Runs on the user's own machine with the user's keys ('Everything runs on your machine, with your keys, in your workspace'). v0.8.5 added an optional hosted ZeroRouter routing preset. source
n/e
Data retention & training
Self-hosted; retention/training depends on the chosen model provider. No retention statement found for the hosted ZeroRouter beta. source
C
Incident history (24 months)
One published GitHub advisory (high): plugin install path traversal leading to arbitrary file write / RCE, with plugin signatures off by default; patched in 0.8.5 and disclosed the same day. Separate ecosystem issues: impersonation sites (e.g. zeroclaw.org, zeroclaw.net) pointing to unofficial forks, and the official repo returning 404 around 30 Mar 2026 (cause not established). No NVD CVEs found. source
D
Compliance
No SOC 2 / ISO 27001 attestation; community open-source project. source
A
Transparency
Dual MIT OR Apache-2.0 licence; detailed GitHub release notes and a CHANGELOG; public security policy and advisories. source
The experts
3 named independent reviews found; dated reviews from the last 12 months are scored.
- positive
an incredible lightweight alternative to OpenClaw that solves the performance issues many users have been facing
AICodeKing (YouTube) · 18 Feb 2026 · youtube.com - mixed
Rust has a steep learning curve. The plugin ecosystem is younger than OpenClaw's.
Till Freitag (till-freitag.com) · 4 Jun 2026 · till-freitag.com - positive
ZeroClaw is the best pick if you want a fast, lightweight, local OpenClaw alternative that does not need a heavy runtime.
Sunil Kumar Dash (Composio) · 16 Sept 2026 · composio.dev
The crowd
9 coded posts from hackernews, reddit.
3 positive2 mixed4 negative
- mixed
I switched to ZeroClaw as the project is much smaller in terms of features and lines of code so I felt it was much more manageable.
news.ycombinator.com · 16 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
I tried Zeroclaw and Nullclaw but they're bad in their own way.
news.ycombinator.com · 10 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
it was a bad idea to use ZeroClaw at all since the harness is very buggy
news.ycombinator.com · 22 Mar 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
I found ZeroClaw plus Hetzner to be a good option. I've been using it for a week, and it's stable and robust.
news.ycombinator.com · 12 Mar 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
The ZeroClaw team is focusing their efforts on correctness and security by design. Observability is not yet there but the project is moving very rapidly.
news.ycombinator.com · 21 Feb 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
I tried ZeroClaw out and it was... kind of awful.
news.ycombinator.com · 21 Feb 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - mixed
So tried to experiment with gemini grounding. But looks like I keep getting tool calling errors.
r/ZeroClaw · 28 Jul 2026 · reddit.com - negative
However, I ran into a bunch of issues: HTTP 500 errors, excessive function tool calls, the gateway management platform freezing up, and config files simply not taking effect.
r/LocalLLaMA · 8 Mar 2026 · reddit.com
Pricing
As published, checked 26 Sept 2026.
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open source (self-hosted) | Free | Free; users pay only for the LLM provider, or nothing with local models. |
Recent changes
- 5 Sept 2026
v0.8.5: ZeroRelay secure transport and ZeroRouter hosted routing preset, multi-conversation dashboard chat, plugin/sandbox/credential hardening; 454 commits from 73 contributors. source
- 2 Aug 2026
v0.8.4: memory and SOP control-plane expansion, sandbox and credential hardening. source
- 16 Jul 2026
v0.8.3: Standard Operating Procedure engine, WebAssembly plugin host, Git forge channel. source
- 26 Jun 2026
v0.8.2: A2A agent discovery and extra skills registries. source
Ranked alongside
Other ranked entries in Personal & desktop agents.
Hermes AgentNous Research69
OpenClawOpenClaw Foundation (created by Peter Steinberger)63
Sources
Every figure above traces to one of these, observed up to 26 Sept 2026.