FAQ

Real questions, honest answers. If your question is not here, open an issue — we add things that come up more than once.

§ 10.1 Is OpenClaw production-ready in 2026?

It depends on what you mean by production. Single-user always-on (your personal assistant): yes. Multi-tenant SaaS: with significant DIY work — multi-agent routing helps but auth/scale/RBAC are your problem. Team deployment for 5–50 people: possible but you are the sysadmin, not the ops vendor. See §1.4 honest drawbacks #1 for the single-user-shape constraint.

§ 10.2 Should I use OpenClaw or just MCP + Claude Desktop?

Different shapes for different needs. Persistence + plugin marketplace + 24+ channels are the OpenClaw advantages. Lower setup floor + IDE-native UX are the MCP-host advantages. Most thoughtful people use both for different jobs. §7.1 has the deep comparison.

§ 10.3 How much does running an OpenClaw agent cost?

Three cost lines: hosting (laptop = $0 marginal, Pi 5 = ~$2/month electricity, Hetzner VM = ~$15/month, Azure VM = ~$30/month), model API calls ($1–25/month for typical personal use depending on model), optional governance services (Honcho memory, etc. — depends). See §2.1 hardware matrix for the cost-per-setup table.

§ 10.4 Can I run OpenClaw on a Raspberry Pi 4?

Yes, with constraints. The 8GB Pi 4 is fine for runtime + hosted-API model. The 4GB Pi 4 is tight (you will feel cold-start lag, cannot run local models comfortably). Pi 5 with 8GB is the recommended starter box at $130 all-in. See §2.6 for the full Pi setup.

§ 10.5 How do I keep adversarial users from hijacking my bot?

Defaults are sensible (DM policy = pairing, sandbox = off, etc.). The moment you connect a public channel or open DM to people you do not know, run through §6.1 the 12 checks. Particularly: turn on sandbox for non-main sessions, never set dmPolicy="open" + "*" in allowFrom without thinking, and run openclaw doctor after every config change.

§ 10.6 How is this site different from the official OpenClaw docs?

Official docs are exhaustive and authoritative. We are editorial — opinionated, plain-English, with verification states declaring what we have actually run. Both have their place. We cross-link liberally to docs; you will often follow a "see official docs at docs.openclaw.ai" link out of our pages.

§ 10.7 Will OpenClaw be around in 18 months?

Honest answer: probably yes given current adoption + active maintenance + active Discord. But the brand "Claw Planet" is intentionally about self-hosted persistent agent runtimes — if OpenClaw fades or merges with something else, this site adapts to whatever takes its place. The principles (workspace files, multi-channel, persistent identity, sandbox-in-non-main, sourced-only honesty) outlive any specific runtime.

§ 10.8 Why is this site logo a bracket-asterisk?

Because [*] reads as "footnote" / "annotation" / "code reference" — which is what this site IS. We are footnotes on OpenClaw, not OpenClaw itself. Plus the asterisk happens to be the OpenClaw red. Boring story; consistent answer.