OpenClaw

A personal AI assistant that runs on your own computer and answers in the chat apps you already use, from WhatsApp and Telegram to Slack and iMessage.

394k stars, 82.7k forks TypeScript On GitHub since November 2025

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

What is OpenClaw?

OpenClaw runs a gateway on your laptop or server and connects it to Discord, iMessage, Slack, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp and more than 20 other channels, with native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux. The assistant keeps its state, memory and credentials on your hardware, and the model behind it, such as Claude, Codex or a local model, is a plugin you can swap. The same gateway can serve a single user or a whole team, and new abilities come as plugins shared through ClawHub.

Good fit if

  • You want an assistant that acts for you inside your existing chats rather than in a separate app.
  • You care where memory and credentials are stored and want them on your own machine.
  • You like to choose and change the model provider yourself.

Look elsewhere if

Before you adopt it

OpenClaw is MIT-licensed and stewarded by the OpenClaw Foundation, a non-profit, with no paid tier or hosted service. Tools run directly on the host unless you configure sandboxing, so read its security guide before connecting other people or exposing the gateway to the internet.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 30 October 2026. Report a correction

OpenClaw health: is it still maintained?

79 of 100, actively developed

  • Activity
    47,593 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 1 November 2026.
    30 / 30
  • Contributors
    14 people wrote the latest 100 commits; the most active wrote 32% of them.
    16 / 20
  • Releases
    10 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, v2026.10.9, on 29 October 2026.
    18 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Too few recent issues from outside the team to measure, so this part gets a neutral score.
    10 / 20
  • Security practices
    No OpenSSF Scorecard for this repository yet, so this part gets a neutral score.
    5 / 10

Read from GitHub on 1 November 2026. How the score works

OpenClaw license: is it open source?

OpenClaw uses MIT, an open-source license approved by the OSI.

  1. November 2025First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayMIT.

How to run OpenClaw yourself

Docker
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Compose file
docker-compose.yml: 2 services
Setup effort
3 of 5, judged from the compose file
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
Builds for Linux, macOS, including ARM in GitHub releases
Interface languages
22 languages

Install instructions: openclaw.ai or the README on GitHub.

Alternatives to OpenClaw

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Questions about OpenClaw

Is OpenClaw open source?

Yes. OpenClaw is published under MIT, an OSI-approved open-source license.

Is OpenClaw still maintained?

Its health score is 79 of 100 (actively developed). It had 47,593 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 1 November 2026, and its latest release came out on 29 October 2026.

How do I run OpenClaw?

You can run it with Docker, as an app for Linux, macOS, including ARM. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What are the alternatives to OpenClaw?

Close alternatives in the AI chat & local LLMs category include Leon, RAGFlow, DocsGPT.