"Rarely have I more appreciated the chasm between me and Silicon Valley than I have while using OpenClaw. This new AI program, which previously went by Moltbot and before that Clawdbot, has achieved virality over the past week for its ability to control your digital life via text message. It's an unashamedly geeky tool at the moment, but those who've been using it have hailed it as the future of digital assistants."
"There's just one problem: OpenClaw is exorbitantly expensive to use. Okay, maybe not for the AI boosters who think nothing of dropping $200 per month on ChatGPT Pro or Claude Max. But definitely for me as someone who balks at even a $20 per month AI subscription. Continuing to use OpenClaw would cost me a lot more than that, which isn't worth the time it saves on a handful of menial tasks."
"Much of what OpenClaw does is similar to existing AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude. It can answer questions, browse the web, and connect with an array of third-party services, including your email and calendar. But it also does a few key things differently: It can access anything on your computer. You can access it through popular chat services such as WhatsApp and iMessage. Because it's always running, it can proactively message you and run tasks automatically."
OpenClaw runs continuously on a personal computer and connects to external AI models via a command-line setup. It can access any local file, browse the web, answer questions, and integrate with third-party services such as email and calendars. Users can interact through messaging platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage, and the agent can proactively send messages and run automated tasks. The tool enables task management actions such as summarizing, adding, rearranging, and removing items in a to-do board stored in Obsidian. High ongoing costs make sustained use impractical for cost-sensitive users despite practical automation benefits.
Read at Fast Company
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