OpenClaw vs Orchestrator Zero
oz0 records agent jobs running on your infrastructure. OpenClaw focuses on a personal or trusted-team assistant. oz0 manages agents across tenants and machines, with configured spend limits and a verifiable audit trail. Recovery depends on the agent type.
What OpenClaw is
OpenClaw is an open-source AI assistant, MIT-licensed and stewarded by the OpenClaw Foundation, a 501(c)(3). One Gateway process on your own machine runs the agents and connects them to chat apps such as Slack, Teams, Telegram and WhatsApp; paired nodes on other computers and phones run commands for it, and opt-in cloud workers can take over a session's coding work. It has no paid tier or hosted service.
github.com- Runs
- Self-hosted
- Licence
- MIT, no paid tier
- Checked
- 27 October 2026
Side by side.
OpenClaw's ratings come from its own pages. A column's name opens its definition and how Orchestrator Zero does it. How we rated
Where it runs
Linux, macOS and Windows
Yes
The Gateway installs as a service on macOS (LaunchAgent), Linux (systemd) and native Windows (Scheduled Task), with companion apps and node hosts on all three.
Fleet operations
Yes
DocsYes
A registry of paired nodes, placement of work on them, and staged upgrades of the Gateway and the nodes.
Durability
Durable runs
Conditional: Runtime-dependent recovery
The Gateway persists recovery state and resumes eligible interrupted turns. Retries and reconciliation are bounded and depend on the runtime; this is not uniform replay from each completed step.
Governance
Tool policy outside the model
Conditional: Controls vary by runtime
Tool filters and session permission modes restrict actions in code. Exec has approval and auto-review modes; plugin actions and native harnesses have their own approval paths.
Approvals in chat
Conditional: Expiry and restart limits
Chat apps and the CLI can answer exec and plugin approvals. Requests can expire or be cancelled on Gateway restart, so waits are not uniformly durable.
docs.openclaw.ai docs.openclaw.ai docs.openclaw.ai docs.openclaw.ai
Tool snapshots
Yes
DocsConditional: Plugin pins; MCP unchecked
Plugin versions can be pinned and artifact changes require confirmation. Remote MCP metadata refreshes automatically; grants identify servers and tools, rather than approved definitions.
Tenants built in
Yes
DocsConditional: One boundary per gateway
Operator scopes and multi-user ownership work within one trusted Gateway domain. The docs recommend separate Gateways and OS users or hosts for strong separation between teams.
Cost
Budgets that stop a run
Conditional: Estimates, no cost cap
Cost is estimated; token budgets guard a session's goal and set no cap on spend.
Security
Provider keys off the workers
Yes
DocsYes: Workers proxy via Gateway
The Gateway holds provider credentials. Cloud workers proxy inference through it, while nodes and sandboxes run commands without provider keys. Stored secrets are not added to subprocess environments.
Sandbox with an egress allowlist
Conditional: Allowlist only via OpenShell
Docker sandboxes default to no network. A host allowlist needs OpenShell or your proxy; the secret egress proxy's allowlist only covers unsandboxed Gateway commands.
Audit and compliance
Tamper-evident audit trail
Conditional: Audit log without hash chain
The Gateway records a bounded metadata ledger and can record execution identity and approval receipts. Persistence is best effort; the docs do not describe a verifiable hash-chained or signed activity log.
Erasure by key
Conditional: Delete sessions and memory
Sessions can be deleted and memory derived from chosen sessions forgotten, but there are no per-person keys, and the docs say neither control erases everything the agent has seen.
Retention with legal hold
Conditional: Retention setting, no hold
session.maintenance sets how long sessions are kept and a disk budget, the audit ledger keeps a fixed 30 days, and pinned sessions are protected from maintenance; no legal hold is documented.
Openness
Model provider choice
Yes
DocsYes
Bundled provider plugins cover OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini and others, and local models run through Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp.
MCP and A2A
Yes
DocsYes
Agents use MCP servers as tools, and the bundled A2A channel publishes an Agent Card, accepts A2A 1.0 tasks and can message peer agents.
Where OpenClaw is stronger.
Twenty-plus chat apps, Teams included
People reach the assistant from Discord, iMessage, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp and more, with approval cards in Teams. Orchestrator Zero has Slack, Discord and Teams, all tested only against stand-ins so far.
github.comApps for desktops and phones
Companion apps run on macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux, and a phone or desktop can pair as a node the agent uses.
github.comPublic project under a foundation
The source is public under MIT and stewarded by an independent foundation.
github.comA public skill and plugin registry
Skills and plugins install from ClawHub, a public registry.
docs.openclaw.ai
Differences to examine.
Compare the scope, conditions and editions in the source notes.
Using both
OpenClaw's A2A channel can send messages to configured peer agents, and every Orchestrator Zero agent is an A2A agent with an Agent Card, so an OpenClaw assistant could hand work to one.
Based on documentation; this pairing has not been tested.
Find your first task.
Explore an example or read the public Docs preview. Software access is coming soon.