Author: Miles Deutscher, Crypto KOL
Translation: Felix, PANews
OpenClaw (original name: Clawdbot) is an open-source autonomous AI agent tool proposed by developer Peter Steinberger. In early 2026, especially after the name was finalized, it quickly went viral and became one of the hottest projects in the global AI community. Behind all the hype, it’s worth thinking about whether OpenClaw is truly useful and whether it’s suitable for most people. After using OpenClaw for a while, crypto KOL Miles Deutscher believes that OpenClaw isn’t actually right for most people and recommends that beginners start with other tools. The following are the details.
I know the title of this article is ironic—after all, most of my AI workflow is built with OpenClaw. I post every week about it, and I even did a dedicated series of articles called “Day X of building my AI team.”
But I still have to tell you: most people shouldn’t use it.
Before you come at me, please let me finish. This isn’t an article against OpenClaw—it’s an article against hype. Too many content creators chase OpenClaw for traffic, without telling you the truth. And that truth is: for most people, there are better alternatives right now.
Also, over the past week, the entire landscape has changed dramatically.
Inside info that almost nobody mentions behind the hype
Here’s the real experience of 90% of people using OpenClaw:
You see those viral tweets. You buy a Mac Mini. You install OpenClaw. You spend a weekend setting up the agent. You feel like a genius—around two days later. Then you realize you have no idea what you should actually automate.
Your workflow gets interrupted. Your agent program throws errors. You spend more time debugging than doing real work. Now, you have a $1,000+ machine on your desk, but you can only do the kind of work that a $20/month subscription service could handle.
I’ve seen this play out dozens of times in DMs (and on my friends/employees).
The problem isn’t the tool itself—it’s the approach.
But nobody in the OpenClaw circle seems to notice that.
While they’re busy debugging their agent setups, Anthropic, Notion, and other companies released a series of announcements that completely changed the whole situation.
The latest announcements (and why they changed everything)
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a series of announcements that genuinely changed people’s judgment about whether OpenClaw is suitable for most people. I’ll go through them one by one:
1. Claude Code — Remote Control (mobile version)
Anthropic released the mobile version of Claude Code, called “Remote Control.” You just scan a QR code in the terminal to control Claude Code through an iPhone or Android device.
No Mac Mini needed, no VPS needed, no server needed, and no need to open a terminal on your desktop. You just send tasks from your phone, and Claude will automatically build everything in the background.
One of Openclaw’s biggest advantages is that it can be accessed via platforms like Telegram/WhatsApp/Discord—and the launch of remote control solves this problem for many users.
2. Claude Cowork business update
If Claude Code is for developers, then Cowork is for everyone. It’s a smart assistant based on a graphical user interface (GUI) that can complete real work—not only answering questions, but also executing multi-step tasks within your existing tools.
They recently added integrations with Slack, Figma, Canva, Box, and Clay. In addition, they launched plugins for industries such as financial services, human resources, design, and private equity.
After Anthropic published its financial plugin, a software-industry ETF dropped 6% in a single day. After Claude Code Security was released on February 20, the internet security stocks crashed hard that afternoon.
That’s enough to show how much the market cares about this product.
For the work most people want OpenClaw to handle (research, document management, content workflows, data analysis), Cowork can already cover about 80% of the needs.
3. Notion Agents
This feature has long been underestimated, but it really shouldn’t be—especially for Notion users like me.
Notion restructured its entire AI system into autonomous agents. These agents aren’t chatbots—they can autonomously execute multi-step workflows for over 20 minutes and also have memory. They can connect to Slack, Google Drive, and GitHub, and you can set their execution times and trigger conditions.
For knowledge work—such as project management, meeting preparation, research, content planning, and database management—Notion Agents are already better than most people’s OpenClaw setups, and its onboarding barrier is almost zero.
If the main purpose of using OpenClaw is to “manage my business and automate my workflows,” then, honestly, Notion Agents are a solid starting tool.
4. Manus / n8n / Zapier
I won’t spend too much time on these tools (I’ll have deeper content later). But it’s obvious that for basic automation tasks—like email capture, web search, standard operating procedure (SOP) generation, and lead information enrichment—these tools can already handle them today.
If you haven’t even maximized what these tools can do, then you probably don’t really need to buy a Mac Mini.
Scalability issues that nobody mentions
The OpenClaw community also ignores a scalability issue.
Claude Code can scale infinitely in the cloud. More computing resources, more parallel tasks, stronger performance—it grows with your needs. But OpenClaw runs on your own hardware. When you hit the hardware performance bottleneck, your only option is to buy another Mac Mini.
And it’s not only a scalability issue. Claude Code integrates directly into GitHub, VS Code, and Xcode via MCP. They’ve also recently released features such as security scanning, lifecycle hooks, hot reloading, and session switching between devices. This ecosystem keeps expanding every week.
For most people, cloud-based tools are simply more practical.
OpenClaw’s advantages
But OpenClaw still has unmatched advantages.
- Full local control. Your data never leaves your machine. This is crucial for anyone dealing with sensitive business data, customer information, or proprietary workflows.
- Complex multi-agent orchestration. Running a dedicated agent program that communicates with 5 agents, assigns tasks, and operates as a coordinated system—cloud tools can’t do this yet. This is exactly where OpenClaw truly stands out from all other tools (and also the main reason people still use it).
- Custom agent capabilities. SOUL files, detailed configuration, agents that can deeply understand your business context—this level of customization is not something other places can achieve.
- Autonomous operation all day, every day. Once set up correctly, your agent can run 24/7 without subscription fees that eat into your profits. In the long run, if you do the upfront prep work, OpenClaw’s economics are actually better.
- True ownership. You own the entire tech stack, especially if you run local models.
If you’ve already invested the time to set up a good OpenClaw environment and you have real, validated use cases, then you’re still in a favorable position.
But given the various updates being rolled out across the industry, my personal view on OpenClaw is:
It’s a great tool, but it’s not the only tool. I use Claude Code to build specific models/workflows. I use Notion Agents for business automation. I even use GPT to develop strategies.
I believe there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. The best approach is to use specific tools for specific purposes. What OpenClaw is especially useful for in my case is automating data capture and autonomous product iteration. But that’s entirely a personal choice.
So what should you do, exactly?
If you’re starting from zero, here are some sincere suggestions from me:
Step one: Start with Claude (choose Cowork or the Code version based on your technical level). Get familiar with what AI agents can do in your specific workflows. Personally, this is the best starting point for 99% of people.
Step two: Add Notion Agents and/or Manus/n8n for your knowledge work and basic automation. Test what’s worth automating and what isn’t. This is a low-risk way to test new workflows.
Step three: When you truly feel these tools aren’t enough, that’s when OpenClaw comes into play. Because now you clearly know what you need it to do.
Most people start straight from step three, and then wonder why OpenClaw isn’t working.
Summary
OpenClaw is great for some people. If you want to stay at the forefront of AI, it’s absolutely worth trying.
But the hype makes people think that buying hardware and setting up agents is the way to “use AI.” That isn’t true. The right approach isfirst understand which parts need to be automated, use beginner-friendly tools to test, and only upgrade to OpenClaw when it’s truly necessary.
I still use OpenClaw every day, and I still believe in it. But if you pretend it’s everyone’s starting point, that misleads the public.
Start with the tools above, get up to speed with whatever feels smooth to use, and then build the machine.
That’s the correct order. Most people have it backwards.
