What is OpenClaw?

The AI That Actually Does Things

OpenClaw is an open-source, self-hosted AI assistant that runs directly on your own machine and can actually interact with your digital world. Unlike traditional chatbots that merely respond to prompts, OpenClaw can browse the web, manage your files, send messages on your behalf, control smart home devices, and automate virtually any digital task you throw at it.

Created by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger (known as @steipete on GitHub), OpenClaw has quickly become one of the most talked-about open-source projects of 2026, amassing over 145,000 GitHub stars and more than 20,000 forks in just a few months. Its tagline says it all: "The AI that actually does things."

A Brief History: From Clawdbot to Moltbot to OpenClaw

The project that would become OpenClaw has gone through several identity changes since its inception. It was originally launched under the name Clawdbot, a playful reference to its early reliance on Anthropic's Claude models. As the project matured and expanded its model support beyond Claude to include OpenAI's GPT, DeepSeek, and even local models, the name was changed to Moltbot to reflect this broader compatibility.

The final rebrand to OpenClaw came as the project embraced its identity as a truly open, community-driven platform. The name retains the "claw" motif from its origins while emphasizing the open-source philosophy that has driven its explosive growth. The project's mascot, a friendly red crab, has become an iconic symbol in the AI community.

How OpenClaw Works

At its core, OpenClaw operates as a persistent, always-on AI agent that lives on your computer or server. Here is what makes it fundamentally different from other AI tools:

Persistent Memory — OpenClaw remembers your conversations, preferences, and past interactions over weeks and months. It builds a contextual understanding of who you are and what you need, making each interaction more useful than the last.

Proactive Messaging — Unlike passive assistants that wait for your commands, OpenClaw can reach out to you unprompted. It might remind you about an upcoming deadline it noticed in your calendar, alert you to a price drop on an item you were tracking, or suggest optimizations based on patterns it has observed in your workflow.

Full System Access — This is what truly sets OpenClaw apart. It can read and write files on your system, execute shell commands, browse the web using a real browser, fill out forms, extract data from websites, and interact with APIs. It is not sandboxed away from your digital life — it is embedded in it.

Multi-Platform Communication — OpenClaw connects to your existing messaging platforms. You can interact with it through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, and even iMessage. This means you can send it a message from your phone and have it execute complex tasks on your computer.

Model Flexibility — OpenClaw is not locked into any single AI provider. It supports Claude (Anthropic), GPT (OpenAI), DeepSeek, and local models running through Ollama or similar frameworks. You pay only for the API costs of whichever model you choose to use.

The Skills Ecosystem

One of OpenClaw's most powerful features is its extensible skills system. Skills are modular plugins that extend what OpenClaw can do. The community has built over 50 integrations covering everything from Spotify control and smart home automation to GitHub management and WordPress publishing.

The ClawhHub serves as the community marketplace for skills, where developers can share their creations and users can browse and install new capabilities with a single command. This ecosystem approach means OpenClaw's capabilities are constantly expanding, driven by the needs and creativity of its user community.

Who Uses OpenClaw?

OpenClaw has found adoption across a remarkably diverse user base. Individual developers use it to automate their coding workflows. Small business owners rely on it to manage customer communications and social media. Power users have it monitoring their smart homes, managing their finances, and organizing their digital lives.

Some users have reported saving hours every week through OpenClaw automation, and a growing number of entrepreneurs claim to be running significant portions of their businesses with OpenClaw handling routine tasks. The project has been featured in publications including MacStories, CNBC, IBM Developer, CNet, and freeCodeCamp.

The Moltbook Phenomenon

Perhaps the most fascinating development in the OpenClaw ecosystem is Moltbook, a companion social network where OpenClaw agents post and interact with each other. Think of it as a Reddit-style feed populated entirely by AI agents, each reflecting the personality and interests of their human operators.

Moltbook has sparked significant debate about AI autonomy and the future of human-AI interaction. AI researcher Andrej Karpathy described it as "the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing" he had seen. While some view it as a playful experiment, others see it as an early glimpse of a future where AI agents routinely interact with each other on behalf of their human users.

Why OpenClaw Matters

OpenClaw represents a significant shift in how we think about AI assistants. Rather than being a cloud-based service controlled by a corporation, it is an open-source tool that runs on your own hardware, under your own control. This approach offers several important advantages:

Privacy — Your data stays on your machine. Your conversations, files, and personal information are not sent to a third-party server (beyond the LLM API calls you choose to make).

Customization — Because it is open-source, you can modify OpenClaw to suit your exact needs. The skills system makes this accessible even to non-developers.

Cost — OpenClaw itself is free. You only pay for the LLM API calls, which typically cost a fraction of what subscription-based AI services charge.

Autonomy — You are not dependent on any company's continued support or pricing decisions. If OpenClaw's development stopped tomorrow, you could still run and modify your existing installation.

As AI continues to evolve from passive tools to active agents, OpenClaw stands at the forefront of a movement to ensure that this powerful technology remains accessible, transparent, and under the control of the people who use it.