What is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot and Moltbot) is a free, open-source AI agent created by Peter Steinberger that went from hobby project to 145,000+ GitHub stars in weeks. Here's the full story — from its origins, to the Anthropic trademark drama, to the Moltbook explosion — and how it compares to ChatGPT, Gemini, and the rest.
> A brief history of OpenClaw
OpenClaw was created by Austrian software engineer Peter Steinberger, the founder of PSPDFKit. It grew out of Clawd — a personal AI virtual assistant Steinberger had built for himself, named as a playful nod to Anthropic's Claude. In November 2025, he open-sourced a more capable version of it on GitHub under the name Clawdbot, with an agent persona called "Clawd." It was meant as a hobby project. Within weeks, it had thousands of GitHub stars.
Then Anthropic stepped in. The name "Clawdbot" was a bit too close to "Claude" for comfort, and Anthropic filed a trademark complaint. Steinberger leaned into the project's lobster mascot — lobsters molt to grow — and renamed it to Moltbot on January 27, 2026, with the agent persona becoming "Molty." But the new name didn't stick. Just three days later, Steinberger renamed it again to OpenClaw, saying Moltbot "never quite rolled off the tongue."
That same week, entrepreneur Matt Schlicht launched Moltbook — a Reddit-like social network designed exclusively for AI agents. The viral popularity of Moltbook (which amassed over 1.6 million registered bots and 7.5 million AI-generated posts) poured rocket fuel on OpenClaw's growth. The project skyrocketed from 9,000 to over 60,000 GitHub stars in just 72 hours, eventually surpassing 145,000 stars and 20,000 forks.
On February 4, 2026, the community held its first in-person meetup — ClawCon — at Frontier Tower in San Francisco, cementing OpenClaw's place as one of the most significant open-source AI projects of the year.
Peter Steinberger open-sources his personal AI assistant "Clawd" as Clawdbot.
Renamed after Anthropic's trademark complaint. Lobsters molt to grow.
Final rename. 145k+ GitHub stars. Moltbook launches the same week.
First community meetup in San Francisco. The ecosystem takes off.
> Why is everyone talking about OpenClaw?
OpenClaw hit a nerve. In a world of closed, subscription-locked AI products, Steinberger built something different: an AI that doesn't just chat — it actually does things. It clears your inbox, manages your calendar, checks you in for flights, monitors your GitHub repos, and controls your smart home — all from the messaging apps you already use.
Several factors fueled the explosive growth:
- ✓ It runs locally, on your hardware. Configuration data and conversation history stay on your machine. No cloud dependency beyond the AI model API you choose.
- ✓ Any model, any channel. Works with Claude, GPT, DeepSeek, Llama, and more. Connects to Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, Slack, iMessage, and 10+ other platforms simultaneously.
- ✓ Persistent memory. Unlike ChatGPT or Claude that forget between sessions, OpenClaw stores daily notes about your interactions and loads them into context — so it remembers what you told it last week.
- ✓ Moltbook went viral. The launch of Moltbook — a social network where only AI agents can post — captured mainstream attention and brought millions of eyes to the project.
- ✓ Fully free and open source. MIT licensed, community-driven, with 100+ pre-built AgentSkills. You only pay for AI model API usage and optional hosting.
> OpenClaw vs ChatGPT, Gemini & other chatbots
OpenClaw is often compared to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot — but they solve fundamentally different problems. ChatGPT is a product you use through a website. OpenClaw is an agent you deploy and own.
Here's how they compare across the dimensions that matter most:
| OpenClaw | ChatGPT | Gemini | Copilot | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open source | Yes (MIT) | No | No | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No | No | No |
| Choose your AI model | Any model | GPT only | Gemini only | GPT only |
| Runs 24/7 as agent | Yes | No | No | No |
| Telegram / Discord / WhatsApp | Native support | No | No | No |
| Custom personality | Full control | Limited (GPTs) | Limited (Gems) | No |
| Plugin ecosystem | Community-driven | Discontinued | Extensions | No |
| Data privacy | Your server | OpenAI servers | Google servers | Microsoft servers |
| Cost | Pay-per-token | $20/mo (Plus) | $20/mo (Advanced) | $20/mo (Pro) |
The key takeaway: if you want a quick answer in a browser tab, ChatGPT and Gemini work great. But if you want a persistent AI agent that lives in your Telegram chats, responds to your Discord server, or acts as a 24/7 assistant for your team — OpenClaw is in a category of its own.
The tradeoff? Setting up OpenClaw yourself requires a server, some technical skill, and managing your own API keys and costs. That's exactly the problem Clawly solves — we handle the hosting, monitoring, and billing so you can focus on using your agent, not babysitting it.
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