# Ray vs OpenClaw

> OpenClaw runs on your machine. Ray runs for your team. Their facts from their own pages, checked August 2026, including where they are the better pick.

Source: https://heyray.io/compare/openclaw

## What OpenClaw is

An open-source agent, MIT licensed, that runs on your own hardware rather than a vendor's. It connects to the messaging apps a team already uses, Signal, Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp and Slack among them, ships a large library of skills, keeps its configuration and history locally, and drives an external model you supply the key for: Claude, a GPT model, DeepSeek or another. It is maintained by the OpenClaw Foundation.

Source: https://openclaw.ai

## One message, two outcomes

In #eng, Jonas says: "The webhook retry logic is dropping events again, someone should track that properly."

**Ray**

1. Files it in Linear from the thread itself
2. Shows you the approval card before it writes anything
3. Works the same whoever is online, on one shared install

**OpenClaw**

1. Can do the same work, and reach tools Ray does not
2. Runs on one person's machine, under their own model keys
3. What it does before asking is what they configured

## Side by side

| | Ray | OpenClaw |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it costs | Flat by team size, from the free tier upward | Nothing for the software, plus your own model keys and hosting |
| Who runs it | We do. There is nothing to host and nothing to update | You do, on your own hardware, with your own keys |
| Chat platforms | Slack today | Signal, Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp and Slack among others |
| Before a write happens | An approval card, structurally, with no off switch | Whatever the person who set it up configured |
| Whose install it is | The team's, shared, with per-member tool identity | Whoever's machine it runs on |
| Memory of your team | Org memory you can inspect, correct and purge | Configuration and history kept locally on that machine |
| Where your data goes | Our infrastructure, never shared with ad platforms | Your machine and the model provider you chose |

## What Ray costs

Free covers 25 tasks a month plus a one-time 50-task starter grant that never expires. Pro is one flat price for your team's size: $49 a month for 1 to 3 people, $99 a month for 4 to 10 people, $199 a month for 11 to 25 people. No seats, and using Ray more never costs more.

## What OpenClaw costs

The software is free, under the MIT licence, and that is not a trial or a tier. What you pay instead is everything around it: the model API keys it drives, the machine it runs on, and the time of whoever keeps both working. Those costs are real but they are yours to size, and for a technical team who would rather own them, free is genuinely free.

Source: https://openclaw.ai

## Choose OpenClaw if

- Cost is the deciding factor. OpenClaw is free and Ray is not, at any size we sell. If your team has the skills to run it and would rather spend them than money, that is a sound trade and we will not pretend otherwise.
- You want your data on your own hardware. OpenClaw runs locally and keeps its history there, which is a guarantee a hosted product cannot make.
- Your team is not on Slack. OpenClaw reaches Signal, Telegram, Discord and WhatsApp today, where Ray is Slack-only.
- You want to change how the agent works. It is MIT licensed with a large skills library and a very large community, so you can read it, fork it and extend it. Ray is none of those things.

## Choose Ray if

- Nobody on your team wants to be the person who owns the machine, the keys and the updates. That job is real, it lands on one person, and it does not go away.
- You want approval to be structural rather than configuration. On Ray no setting turns it off, so what waits for a yes does not depend on who set it up.
- You want one install the whole team shares, where each person's writes go out under their own connected account rather than under one operator's keys.
- You want the bill to be a line item you can predict rather than model usage you have to watch.

## What OpenClaw does not do

Each checked against their own documentation, August 2026.

- There is no managed OpenClaw to buy. Nobody keeps it running for you, nobody is on the other end when it stops, and the upgrade is yours to do. That is the deliberate shape of the project rather than a gap in it, and it is the whole of what Ray is selling against. (https://openclaw.ai)

## Questions people ask

**Is OpenClaw cheaper than Ray?**

In money, yes, and by a lot: the software is free under the MIT licence and Ray starts at a paid band once you pass the free tier. The costs it moves rather than removes are hosting, your own model API keys, and the time of whoever keeps it running. Whether that adds up to cheaper depends entirely on what an hour of your team's time is worth.

**Is Ray open source?**

No. If reading and changing the code matters to you, OpenClaw is the honest answer and Ray is not.

**Can we run both?**

Yes, and some teams will. They do not conflict. If OpenClaw is already doing something well on someone's machine, keep it, and let Ray handle the team-wide work where a shared install and an approval step are the point.

**What happens if the person who set up OpenClaw leaves?**

That is the question worth asking before you pick either one. On a self-hosted install the machine, the keys and the configuration belong to whoever built it. On Ray the install belongs to the workspace, and each member's tool access is their own, so nothing leaves with a person.

## Our rule for this page

Every OpenClaw fact here comes from their own published pages, checked August 2026, and we say where they are the better choice. If anything here is wrong, tell us at support@heyray.io and we will fix it.