- Release notes — formatted for people, with expandable sections.
- Changelog — plain Markdown for AI agents and tools.
- npm package
- registry tarball
- integrity: sha512-G+JkNUhtpDE3cXR4AEi2NyyG9fqI/T2WUSl8ZnR8AATH8Dh1kC3qYFL7wwPoZtgHiP/cszA86PEiE0PDysxb9Q==
- release SHA: fc23bc864e4553c2d215e479eeec47b67a0bf943
OpenClaw by OpenClaw Foundation (nonprofit); created by Peter Steinberger
Pulse Score
80 / 100
Rank #2 of 157
Downloads, last 7 days
4.5M
up 34.8% vs previous week
Downloads, last 30 days
15.6M
up 28.5% vs previous 30 days
GitHub stars
391K
about +162 a day
Latest release
2026.9.8
3d ago · 11 in 30 days
Price
Free (OSS)
checked Oct 5, 2026
Overview
Open-source personal AI assistant that runs on the user's own machine as a gateway and works through chat apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord and iMessage, with a skills system and swappable model plugins. It also ships native apps for macOS, iOS, Android and Windows.
Status: Renamed from Clawdbot to Moltbot on 2026-01-27 and to OpenClaw on 2026-01-30 (first published 2025-11-24 as Warelay), and stewarded by the OpenClaw Foundation after creator Peter Steinberger announced on 2026-02-14 that he was joining OpenAI.
OpenClaw was downloaded 4.5M times from npm in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, up 34.8% on the week before and up 28.5% over the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. The GitHub repository has 391K stars, 4,303 of them added in the last 30 days. The latest stable release is 2026.9.8, published Oct 3, 2026; there were 11 stable releases in the past 30 days. It was mentioned in 215 Hacker News posts and comments over the last 30 days.
Recent developments
- 2026-02-14: creator Peter Steinberger announced he is joining OpenAI and the OpenClaw Foundation took over stewardship.
- 2026-08-30: OpenClaw 2.0 (v2026.8.1) announced.
OpenClaw usage and attention over time
Download the raw daily series: openclaw.csv
Install OpenClaw
| npm | npm install -g openclaw |
|---|---|
| Homebrew | brew install openclaw-cli |
| Docker | docker pull openclaw/openclaw |
These commands use the packages tracked on this page. The vendor may recommend a different installer; see the official documentation.
Key facts
| Maker | OpenClaw Foundation (nonprofit); created by Peter Steinberger |
|---|---|
| Type | Personal assistant agent |
| First released | November 2025 |
| License | MIT |
| Interfaces | Messaging apps, CLI, Desktop, Mobile |
| Platforms | macOS, Linux, Windows, iOS, Android |
| Models | Model-agnostic: Claude, OpenAI Codex/GPT, DeepSeek and local models via plugins |
| Bring your own API key | Yes |
| Main language | TypeScript |
| Open issues and PRs | 9,420 |
| Homebrew installs | 542 in 30 days · 21,267 in a year |
| Docker Hub pulls | 269,439 |
| App Store rating | 3.4 / 5 from 62 ratings |
Pricing
Free and open source (MIT) with no paid tier, hosted service or token; users pay their chosen model providers.
Source: official pricing page, checked Oct 5, 2026. Prices change often; confirm before you buy.
Pulse Score breakdown
Adoption82
Community100
Attention69
Momentum64
Each component is scored 0 to 100 from public signals; a dash means no data for it. Methodology.
What changed: recent OpenClaw releases
20 stable releases in the last 90 days · Full changelog
- GPT-6.1 Sol support: add the current Sol model across OpenAI routing, discovery, reasoning, harness, and Reef guard-model boundaries. (#161400,
- Safer updates and recovery: preserve plugin settings, prevent duplicate Gateways, handle pnpm package updates without terminal failures, and retain plugin inventory through migration. (#160344,…
- Reliable agent completion: preserve complete delegated and CLI answers, release suspended child capacity, recover full cron output, and prevent failed requests from consuming steered questions.…
- Security and ownership hardening: keep secret-store kinds stable during rotation, restore admitted secret-egress execution, and retain explicit cron tool allowlists while repairing stale automatic…
- Channel and integration reliability: repair Gmail and IMAP watchers, Matrix direct mappings, Telegram progress, remote MCP startup, and managed llama.cpp startup on clean Windows hosts. (#161503,…
- Performance and UI continuity: bound model-catalog waits, reduce Codex fleet heap pressure, and keep saved WebChat replies visible across history refresh races. (#161132, #162912, #162763) Thanks…
- Extended-stable correctness rollup: backport 113 audit-selected fix units across upgrades, Doctor, authentication, sessions, channels, plugins, sandboxing, filesystem safety, model runtimes, and…
- Complete rescan: re-evaluate the full 2026.8.33 discovery range, large mixed-purpose pull requests, and the 2026.7.35 lineage instead of advancing only from the previous backport cursor.
- Upgrade and recovery hardening: preserve credentials, agent state, plugin inventory, transcripts, schedules, service ownership, and runtime links through upgrades, restarts, and Doctor repair.
- Boundary fixes: tighten remote filesystem mutation, plugin and skill scanning, browser authentication, channel reply identity, private skill ingress, and scoped runtime ownership.
- Extended-stable release preparation: align OpenClaw, publishable plugins, native version metadata, generated channel catalogs, and npm package inventories to 2026.8.34.
- Plugins: Recover orphan installs without weakening ownership.
- Release notes — formatted for people, with expandable sections.
- Changelog — plain Markdown for AI agents and tools.
- npm package
- registry tarball
- integrity: sha512-/8N2LnfTFQPvnZizi8qKSFfnLQaPvSG3Cb4xo1YV7b4JhYiUc43ZNRpXJ01bWghLK0Ezk3HVeo/DGHcIRQwRWA==
- release SHA: c074824a27c96d3983043f9eeb33823cd1772d8c
- Current flagship models: add Meta Muse Spark 1.3, Anthropic Fable 5.1, OpenAI GPT-6 Astra, and OpenAI/fal GPT Image 2.5 support to the extended-stable line. (#135638, #136553, #137550, #143068,
- Complete GPT-5.6 family support: preserve Sol, Terra, and Luna catalog, routing, migration, image, vision, and thinking behavior, including Ultra reasoning across model-runtime boundaries and…
- Extended-stable security rollup: reconcile all repository advisories that affect 2026.8.2, harden Prometheus metrics authorization and Discord asset/voice ownership, and clear the production…
- Extended-stable release preparation: normalize OpenClaw, all publishable plugins, and native version metadata to 2026.8.33 while retaining the release-line-compatible publication workflows from…
- Anthropic reasoning continuity: preserve Fable 5.1 reasoning through model switches and runtime events.
- OpenAI discovery: require successful model discovery before offering GPT-6 Astra through OAuth.
- Release notes — formatted for people, with expandable sections.
- Changelog — plain Markdown for AI agents and tools.
- npm package
- registry tarball
- integrity: sha512-Ie0kyQSCVfFqixsgVg39vevUDq01Ch5u3+7Yu5Y3qARczmdAe+lzp8bVnO9925rHiW/+CFp70zfORCyPmCH31g==
- release SHA: eb377ac59e6c9fd6c7705028034812becf00271b
OpenClaw alternatives
| # | Agent | Pulse | Downloads 7d | 7d | 30d | VS Code installs | Stars | Latest release | Price | Last 90 days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 |
Hermes AgentNous Research |
54 | 50.2K | up 37.3% | down 39.8% | — | 251K+259/day | 2026.9.2412d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| 37 |
ManusButterfly Effect Pte. Ltd. (Manus AI), Singapore |
51 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Free + $20/mo | ||
| 62 |
GensparkGenspark Inc. (MainFunc) |
42 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Free + $24.99/mo | ||
| 74 |
AutoGPTSignificant Gravitas |
38 | — | — | — | — | 188K+22/day | 0.6.448mo ago | Free + $50/mo | ||
| 83 |
KortixKortix AI |
35 | — | — | — | — | 20.2K+3/day | 0.13.502d ago | Free + $40/mo | ||
| 105 |
DeerFlowByteDance |
27 | — | — | — | — | 83.4K+42/day | 2.1.012d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| No agents match that filter. | |||||||||||
Head to head: OpenClaw vs Hermes Agent · OpenClaw vs Manus · OpenClaw vs Genspark · OpenClaw vs AutoGPT
Guides that cover OpenClaw
AI Agent vs Chatbot vs Agentic AI: What Is the Difference?
Plain-language definitions of AI agents, chatbots, agentic AI, LLMs, workflows and skills, how they relate, and how to tell which one you are looking at, with real examples.
Best AI Agents in 2026: Live Rankings by Category
The leading AI agents for coding, automation, research, browsing, app building, customer support, voice and sales, ranked by public usage data that refreshes daily, with prices and free options.
What Is an AI Agent? A Practical Explanation With Real Examples
What makes software an AI agent, how agents differ from chatbots and plain language models, the main types in use today and how to judge one.
AI Agent Statistics 2026: Live Usage, Growth and Activity Data
Current statistics on AI agents from public data: package downloads, editor installs, GitHub stars, pull requests opened by coding agents, release pace and benchmark results. Updated daily.
OpenClaw FAQ
How much does OpenClaw cost?
Free and open source (MIT) with no paid tier, hosted service or token; users pay their chosen model providers.
Is OpenClaw open source?
Yes. OpenClaw is open source, released under the MIT license.
How popular is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw was downloaded 4.5M times from npm in the week ending Oct 4, 2026, up 34.8% on the week before and up 28.5% over the last 30 days compared with the 30 before. The GitHub repository has 391K stars, 4,303 of them added in the last 30 days. The latest stable release is 2026.9.8, published Oct 3, 2026; there were 11 stable releases in the past 30 days.
What is the latest version of OpenClaw?
The latest stable release we track is 2026.9.8, published on Oct 3, 2026.
What are the alternatives to OpenClaw?
The closest alternatives in the same category by Pulse Score are Hermes Agent, Manus, Genspark, AutoGPT.
Where these numbers come from
npm: openclaw. GitHub: openclaw/openclaw. Homebrew: openclaw-cli. Wikipedia: OpenClaw. Site rank: openclaw.ai on the Tranco list. See data sources for how each one is collected.
Product facts and pricing were checked against: github.com, raw.githubusercontent.com, en.wikipedia.org, registry.npmjs.org, formulae.brew.sh, hub.docker.com, itunes.apple.com, play.google.com.