head to head · open source
OpenClaw vs aidea
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars, 82,755 forks, 6,671 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aidea has 6,935 stars, 1,041 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. OpenClaw leads on adoption by 5,578% (393,747 vs 6,935 stars). OpenClaw is written in TypeScript under MIT; aidea is written in Dart under MIT. OpenClaw has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, aidea 15%. OpenClaw was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| OpenClaw | aidea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 394K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 83K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenClaw if
- You weight community size — 394K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aidea if
- You want the aidea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and aidea fits your workflow better
About OpenClaw
OpenClaw 🦞 — Your assistant, on your devices, in your chats OpenClaw is an open source AI assistant that runs on your own computer and meets you in the channels you already use: Discord, iMessage, Slack, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp, and 20+ more, plus native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. One Gateway runs it as a personal assistant on a laptop or as a shared team deployment; configuration is the only difference. Yours, with no catch. State, memory, and credentials live on your hardware. Models and agent harnesses (Claude, Codex, local models) are plugins you can swap without changing anything…
read the full OpenClaw overview →
About aidea
AIdea AI Chat, Collaboration & Image Generation English 中文 An APP that integrates mainstream large language models and image generation models, built with Flutter, with fully open source code. Download & Try: Open Source Repositories: Client: Server: Docker Deployment: Development & Build Environment The default branch main is the v2 version, currently under active development. If you need to self host, please switch to the v1.x branch. To set up a development environment for compiling and packaging the APP, you can refer to the following articles (more articles will be added over time): AIdea Development…
read the full aidea overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenClaw or aidea more popular?
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars and aidea has 6,935. OpenClaw has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenClaw and aidea free?
Both are open source. OpenClaw is licensed under MIT and aidea under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenClaw and aidea?
OpenClaw is written in TypeScript and aidea in Dart. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenClaw or aidea?
Choose OpenClaw if you want the larger community (393,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose aidea if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.