I've been running OpenClaw for about 2 weeks now. Here's my honest take:
What's great:
- Having Claude in WhatsApp/Telegram is actually life-changing for quick tasks
- The skills ecosystem is clever (basically plugins for AI)
- Self-hosted means full control over data
What's not:
- Token usage can get expensive fast if you're not careful
- Setup is intimidating for non-technical folks
- The rebrand drama (Clawdbot → Moltbot → OpenClaw) didn't help trust
My setup:
- Running in Docker on a cheap VPS
- Using Anthropic API (not unofficial/scraped)
- Strict rate limiting to avoid bill shock
- Sandbox mode enabled
Is it worth it? For me, yes. But I wouldn't recommend it to my non-technical friends without a solid setup guide.
What's great: - Having Claude in WhatsApp/Telegram is actually life-changing for quick tasks - The skills ecosystem is clever (basically plugins for AI) - Self-hosted means full control over data
What's not: - Token usage can get expensive fast if you're not careful - Setup is intimidating for non-technical folks - The rebrand drama (Clawdbot → Moltbot → OpenClaw) didn't help trust
My setup: - Running in Docker on a cheap VPS - Using Anthropic API (not unofficial/scraped) - Strict rate limiting to avoid bill shock - Sandbox mode enabled
Is it worth it? For me, yes. But I wouldn't recommend it to my non-technical friends without a solid setup guide.