Octop vs OpenClaw

Octop (Tencent Cloud) and OpenClaw (OpenClaw Foundation (nonprofit); created by Peter Steinberger) side by side on public data, as of Oct 21, 2026.

OpenClaw has 37.3x the GitHub stars of Octop (393K against 10.5K). Octop shipped 13 stable releases in the past 90 days. OpenClaw shipped 26 stable releases in the past 90 days.

Which should you choose?

Choose OpenClaw if

you need to run local models
you want to use your own model API key
you want to switch between model providers (12 documented against 0)
you want to run it unattended in scripts or CI
you want subagents or several agents working in parallel
you prefer the more widely used tool, with more docs and answers around (Gid Score 75 against 48)

Built from documented features, official prices, status pages and usage data on this page; it does not judge output quality.

Metric	Octop	OpenClaw
Gid Score	48	75
Usage data as of	Oct 21	Oct 21
Rank by Gid Score	#50	#6
Downloads, last 7 days	—	2.1M
Downloads, 7-day change	—	down 46.2%
Downloads, 30-day change	—	up 3.2%
VS Code installs	—	—
Marketplace rating	—	3.4 / 5 (71)
GitHub stars	10.5K	393K
Homebrew installs, 30 days	—	1,265
Hacker News mentions, 30 days	0	215
Latest stable release	1.0.2 · 3d ago	2026.10.5 · 3d ago
Stable releases, 90 days	13	26
Terminal-Bench (best run)	—	—
Price	Free (OSS)	Free (OSS)
License	MIT	MIT
First released	July 2026	November 2025
Interfaces	—	Messaging apps, CLI, Desktop, Mobile
Models		Model-agnostic: Claude, OpenAI Codex/GPT, DeepSeek and local models via plugins

Trends

GitHub starsrunning total

OctopOpenClaw

Octop

A smarter, self-hosted AI assistant — multi-user, multi-agent.

Pricing: Open source under the MIT licence; check the website for any paid hosted plans.

Latest release 1.0.2:

两台 Octop 可以连起来用：通过云端协同使用对方的专家，能聊天，也能改对方工作区里的文件
专家可以组队。主持人负责分派任务和收尾总结，成员的回复会回到聊天，也会同步到即时通讯
新连接器：企查查、OpenAlex、语雀、Obsidian、Agent Mail，以及钉钉命令行（设备码登录后可查通讯录、日程和文档）
可以用公司的 LDAP 账号登录。Telegram 机器人可以限定哪些用户能跟它说话

Full Octop profile

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. Its README warns that tools run on the host for the main session unless sandboxing is configured, and that inbound messages should be treated as untrusted input.

Pricing: Free and open source (MIT) with no paid tier, hosted service or token; users pay their chosen model providers.

Latest release 2026.10.5:

Release notes — formatted for people.
Changelog — plain Markdown for AI agents and tools.
npm package
registry tarball

Full OpenClaw profile