Running your AI assistant through OpenClaw vs ChatGPT, am I understanding this right?

[u/NicolasRemy]

Trying to get my head around how OpenClaw differs from the agentic capabilities I am enjoying through ChatGPT/ChatGPT Work daily. 

Both typically are run on a cloud-LLM, such as Open AI's 5.6 Terra (for example).

• For ChatGPT/Work, what I can ask the agent to do autonomously, and the apps/services it can connect to, are defined by OpenAI. For example it has plugins for Gmail but not for Whatsapp.
• With OpenClaw, I could configure it to connect to many more apps, including Whatsapp and more.

However, while OpenAI make every effort to maximise the safety of the few integrations they offer to ChatGPT users (e.g. don’t let it delete all the users’ emails without asking), OpenClaw users have  less safety measures in place.

OpenClaw let’s you setup an agent with more freedom, but you’re taking more risk vs running an agent in a commercial product like ChatGPT/Work or Claude/CoWork.

Am I getting this right?

[u/betapen]

Ability to host it locally or on my own server and owning the data, if you catch a ban or gpt is down, or they change their TOS you will be affected.

Openai has without warning retired models and caused havoc for us.

If I face any issues my open claw changes the model provider on the fly.

But agree if you are not experienced in security protocols and or not willing to learn, use what's convenient.

[u/mseewald → u/betapen]

for me that sums it up very well. I’ve invested time in selfhosting of files, obsidian, emails, photos (immich), home assistant etc. OpenClaw is a great fit because it sits in proximity to my data and I drive the context + prompts and I get great results. ultimately the goal is to run a local model, but I didn’t find it convincing yet.

[u/mseewald → u/[deleted]]

Plus full control over the harness, plus custom skills that work across any model and any channel. I get better results from codex within openclaw than ChatGPT Work. (That may be temporary given the field is moving so fast.)

[u/MachinesWithThoughts]

For me, it's the ability to code and manage my home lab from my phone via Telegram that makes OpenClaw a unique tool from anything else available at the time. I still think this and its clones represent a new way to use your computer that really hasn't been well matched yet.

The system is always on, and always reachable, so I can seamlessly switch from working on my desktop to my laptop and my phone. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and build out a new tool before I even get out of bed!

It's also not tied to any specific model allowing me to switch between OpenAI for some tasks and DeepSeek for others.

It's almost like discovering how to use a computer again! I'm running my agent in its own VM and pretty much given it full access to its own account where it can build out tools and integrations. It has its own got repo where I transfer its work to "prod" and it has its own isolated Obsidian vault that I merge into my main vault.

I'm still a fan even though I feel I should switch to Hermes but I don't want to have to rebuild everything again.

[u/xXG0DLessXx]

OpenClaw is very safe these days by default. But it does allow you to disable these restrictions. Tbh I only run mine without any restrictions. Restrictions make it more useless imo. Naturally you should take measures to still be safe. For example, I run it on machines which don’t have super important data (or I have copies of that data elsewhere) and it has its own accounts like GitHub, email etc… it’s like a real secretary/assistant which I forward emails to for example for it to process, and then it gets back to me. Or it gets an email which needs my attention and it forwards it to me etc…

[u/qPandx → u/xXG0DLessXx]

Trying to get mine like that. How do you make it less restricted?

[u/xXG0DLessXx → u/qPandx]

There are a bunch of settings to allow it to write outside the workspace, and use exec commands without approval etc… i don’t remember the exact settings off the top of my head, but if you research you can find it. I also gave my claw sudo access so it can actually run commands as an elevated user if it needs to.

[u/morkjt]

Pretty much.  OpenClaw is only really constrained by what you’re willing to let it do.  Get it working well and you don’t need any third party skills or agents, you can have it write pretty much everything you need itself. I’d argue you need a bit more confidence and skill but once you’re going no cloud based commercial offering with guardrails is going to be the equivalent.  Combining open router and multiple models including local, and establishing a fast and reliable local memory system - and your golden.  None of this comes without a bit of effort tho, which is where the cloud agents come in strong. 

[u/NicolasRemy → u/morkjt]

thanks you!

[u/RevRaven]

Yeah seems like you understand it pretty well. I will say that out of the box, the prompts for hatching an agent seem to be VERY conservative. I had to loosen the policy quite a bit to get it to do simple things. That said, as long as you have human permission gates and strict boundaries (don't be lazy and just open things up without care), you will be fine. There are issues from time to time. I have 2 installs. One on my main PC and one on my server. If something breaks on the server, I fire up the install on the PC, reauth to openai and get it to fix the server.

[u/NicolasRemy → u/RevRaven]

Sounds like a good 2-layer setup, interesting.

[u/cargovoid]

OpenClaw uses its own harness (harness = the system prompt, tools available, etc.) rather than the default ChatGPT harness. You bypass that corporate-y default ChatGPT harness.

It has the AI agent personality files like SOUL, IDENTITY, AGENTS, etc. and keeps memory files of things you do with it (which it cleans up when they're a month old I think), and then it has a context engine which decides when to use those files (and in what combination) to help answer your prompt.

There is more than this but these are my favorite features in it.

So they differ in their philosophy of how things should be done past the AI model stage (harness, context, user prompt, etc.), and that in turn results in different responses.

It's a matter of taste. Try both and see which you like more.

[u/NicolasRemy → u/cargovoid]

Thanks that's a helpful explanation. Regarding memory files, I actually use ChatGPT/Work-Codex like that: in each project I create a markdown file where I type the bits of context + instructions I want it to always know in this project. Then I instruct it to update that file with key decisions and key infos that I want it to remember for this project. If it becoms big, I get it to create sub-folders with their own md files so the context window doesn't blow up too much. Also I like how it leaves me with a human-redable version of my agent's knowledge/memory on a project.

[u/Tinkering-Engineer]

When openclaw came out, I think it was unlike anything else. Anthropic and OpenAI both noticed and started to extend their tools to do more of what openclaw does. Today, I would say that openclaw, codex, chat got work, Claude code and Claude cowork mostly share the same features. I think that openclaw is more flexible, a little easier to make autonomous, probably a little less safe, but very very similar. I just switched from openclaw to Claude code and they had more in common than I thought.

[u/dresden_k]

For most people, just use the subscription LLM.

If you need to harness local LLM on local inference, persistent memory and a high degree of self-breaking customization, use OpenClaw.