head to head · open source
OpenClaw vs botman
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars, 82,755 forks, 6,671 open issues and last shipped yesterday. botman has 6,148 stars, 813 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. OpenClaw leads on adoption by 6,304% (393,747 vs 6,148 stars). OpenClaw is written in TypeScript under MIT; botman is written in PHP under MIT. OpenClaw has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, botman 13%. OpenClaw was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | botman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 394K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 83K | ⑂ 813 |
| 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 botman if
- You want the botman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and botman 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 botman
BotMan If you want to learn how to create reusable PHP packages yourself, take a look at my upcoming PHP Package Development video course. About BotMan BotMan is a framework agnostic PHP library that is designed to simplify the task of developing innovative bots for multiple messaging platforms, including Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Bot Framework, Nexmo, HipChat, Facebook Messenger and WeChat. If you want to learn how to create reusable PHP packages yourself, take a look at my upcoming PHP Package Development video course. Documentation You can find the BotMan documentation at Stand Alone Configuration If you are…
read the full botman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenClaw or botman more popular?
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars and botman has 6,148. OpenClaw has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenClaw and botman free?
Both are open source. OpenClaw is licensed under MIT and botman under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenClaw and botman?
OpenClaw is written in TypeScript and botman in PHP. 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 botman?
Choose OpenClaw if you want the larger community (393,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose botman if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.