Created by Peter Steinberger, founder of PSPDFKit (now Nutrient), Clawdbot went from personal project to 30,000+ GitHub stars in January 2026.
The Discord community grew from zero to thousands of active contributors within weeks, all building skills, sharing workflows, and pushing what's possible with self-hosted AI.
This guide covers everything you need to know about Clawdbot in 2026: what it actually does, how much it costs, how to set it up, real-world use cases, and whether it's the right choice for your needs.
ALSO READ: 15 NotebookLM Prompts That Actually Work (Copy, Paste, Done)
Clawdbot is an open-source AI assistant that runs on hardware you control—whether that's a $5/month virtual private server, a Raspberry Pi, or an old laptop—and communicates through messaging apps you already use.
Unlike ChatGPT or Claude where you visit a website and type queries, Clawdbot lives inside WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, iMessage, and 10+ other platforms.
You message it like you'd message a colleague.
The same conversation flows across every device.
The architecture consists of four components that work together:
Four capabilities differentiate Clawdbot from consumer AI tools:
The Clawdbot showcase demonstrates what people actually build:
Federico Viticci from MacStories reported using Clawdbot so extensively that he burned through 180 million API tokens in his first month—roughly $3,600 in API costs—because he found it more useful than standard ChatGPT or Claude interfaces for daily work.
Running Clawdbot involves two cost components:
Infrastructure: Virtual private servers from Hetzner start at €3-5/month for basic instances with 2GB RAM and sufficient compute.
DigitalOcean and Vultr offer similar pricing at $5-6/month. AWS Free Tier provides up to 6 months of free hosting for new users.
Alternatively, repurpose old hardware—Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB RAM ($50-100 one-time purchase), an old laptop, or a Mac Mini you're no longer using.
AI Model API Usage: Anthropic Claude API pricing runs $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens for Claude Sonnet.
Typical usage for moderate daily interaction ranges from $20-50/month. Heavy users who run complex automations or multi-agent setups report $100-300/month. OpenAI GPT-4 follows similar pricing structures.
Local models through Ollama eliminate API costs entirely but require more powerful hardware.
Total monthly cost for typical users: $25-75. Compare that to hiring a virtual assistant at $500-2,000/month.
Setting up Clawdbot requires 30-60 minutes and basic comfort with terminal commands. The process has become significantly smoother since the project's early days in late 2025.
curl -fsSL https://clawd.bot/install.sh | bash. Alternatively, install via npm: npm install -g clawdbot@latest.clawdbot onboard --install-daemon. The wizard walks through authentication (API keys for Claude or GPT), channel configuration (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord), and daemon installation so the Gateway runs continuously.clawdbot pairing approve <channel> <code>. This security measure prevents unauthorized access.The official documentation at docs.clawd.bot provides detailed platform-specific guides. The Discord community (5,000+ members as of January 2026) offers near-instant help for troubleshooting.
How Clawdbot stacks up against other AI assistants in 2026:
Versus ChatGPT: ChatGPT lives in a browser tab. You go to it, type queries, and copy results elsewhere.
Clawdbot lives in your messaging apps and comes to you. ChatGPT has no memory between sessions unless you pay for Plus and enable memory features.
Clawdbot maintains continuous context indefinitely. ChatGPT cannot take actions on your behalf. Clawdbot has full computer access through skills.
ChatGPT costs $20/month for Plus. Clawdbot costs $5-25/month depending on usage and infrastructure choices.
Versus Siri or Google Assistant: These tools handle quick tasks like setting timers, checking weather, or controlling smart home devices.
Clawdbot manages complex workflows, maintains long-term memory, and executes multi-step processes.
Siri forgets conversations immediately. Clawdbot builds understanding over months. Both Siri and Google Assistant are zero-setup convenience tools.
Clawdbot requires initial configuration but offers exponentially more capability.
Versus cloud-hosted AI assistants: Most AI assistant services are closed-source, cloud-hosted products.
You rent access to someone else's infrastructure and accept their terms, privacy policies, and usage limits. Clawdbot is open-source and self-hosted.
You own the infrastructure, control the data, and customize everything.
The trade-off is you're responsible for setup, security, maintenance, and updates.
Clawdbot makes sense for people who:
Want genuine workflow automation beyond question-answering. If your work involves repetitive tasks—monitoring multiple systems, compiling daily reports, managing calendars across teams, processing email at scale—Clawdbot excels.
Value privacy and data ownership. All conversations, memory, and processing happen on infrastructure you control.
No company servers store your data.
Are comfortable with some technical complexity.
The onboarding wizard simplifies setup, but you'll encounter configuration files, terminal commands, and occasional troubleshooting.
The community provides help, but you need basic willingness to engage with technical concepts.
Need persistent memory and context.
If you want an assistant that remembers conversations from weeks ago, builds understanding of your preferences over time, and doesn't reset between sessions, Clawdbot delivers.
Clawdbot probably isn't right if you:
Want zero-setup convenience. ChatGPT Plus costs $20/month and works immediately.
Clawdbot requires 30-60 minutes of initial setup plus ongoing maintenance.
Are uncomfortable with AI having system access.
If the idea of an AI agent with file system access and terminal commands raises concerns, those concerns are valid.
Traditional chatbots are inherently safer because they cannot execute actions.
Need guaranteed enterprise-grade reliability. This is an open-source project with active development.
Updates sometimes introduce bugs.
The community fixes issues quickly, but expect some rough edges compared to commercial products.
Running an AI assistant with full computer access requires thoughtful security configuration.
Enable sandbox mode to isolate risky operations in containers rather than running them directly on your system.
Whitelist specific commands instead of allowing unrestricted terminal access—if the agent is compromised, damage stays limited to approved operations. Scope API tokens tightly when connecting services like GitHub, Gmail, or Google Drive.
Grant minimum necessary permissions. Never add your bot to group chats where multiple people have access.
Treat Clawdbot like a sudo terminal—private conversations only.
For WhatsApp specifically, use a dedicated phone number rather than your personal number.
WhatsApp doesn't distinguish between personal accounts and bot accounts the way Telegram does.
Run clawdbot security audit regularly to verify your configuration follows best practices. The official security documentation at docs.clawd.bot/gateway/security provides detailed guidance.
If you're ready to set up Clawdbot, start at docs.clawd.bot/start/getting-started.
The getting started guide walks through platform-specific installation steps with copy-paste commands.
Join the Discord community (search "Clawdbot Discord" for current invite links) to see what others are building, get help with setup questions, and discover skills from ClawdHub.
The source code lives at github.com/clawdbot/clawdbot with active development, frequent releases, and community contributions.
Clawdbot represents where personal AI is heading: proactive, persistent, and genuinely capable of taking actions rather than just answering questions.
Whether it fits your needs depends on your willingness to manage the setup and your comfort with giving an AI assistant meaningful access to your digital systems.
For people who want that level of capability and are willing to handle the technical requirements, Clawdbot delivers on the promise that Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant never quite fulfilled.
