PocketClaw is the independent publication on self-hosted AI agents. We test the tools, audit the security, write the migration guides and build the comparisons that the rest of the internet keeps getting paid to soften. No sponsors. No advertisers calling shots. No SEO mills regurgitating release notes. Just one developer, real installs, real bills, real opinions.
The 30-second version
In late 2025 we set out to run a full AI gateway 24/7 on a Moto E2 — a $20 phone from 2015 with 1 GB of RAM, Android 6, and a Snapdragon 410. After 60+ field modifications, we got it working. The phone ran an unmodified OpenClaw gateway with Telegram and Discord bots on Android 6.
Then the world moved. OpenClaw hit 135,000 installs. Five managed-OpenClaw services launched in a single quarter. The original creator (Peter Steinberger) left for OpenAI in February 2026. CVE-2026-25253 — a 1-click remote code execution flaw — landed in the wild. About a thousand public installs were popped before the patch shipped.
By the spring of 2026, the most valuable thing we'd produced wasn't the phone. It was the writing. So we leaned in. PocketClaw is now a publication, not a product.
What we actually do
Every week we ship some combination of:
- Agent comparisons. We install OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, Nanobot, NanoClaw, IronClaw, ZeroClaw, Moltworker on real $5/month VPS instances, run them through five identical tasks, and grade them on setup time, security model, capability, and operational pain.
- Security audits. When a CVE lands, we read the patch, reproduce the vuln in a sandbox, and write what it actually does — not what the security advisory says.
- Migration guides. When you need to leave OpenClaw for Hermes Agent, or move from a managed service to self-hosting, we walk it step-by-step including credentials, tool definitions, sandbox declarations, and the gotchas no one documents.
- Infrastructure deep dives. Real numbers on Hetzner vs Hostinger vs Contabo vs Cloudflare for self-hosted agents. What actually breaks at $5/mo. What you actually get for $30/mo.
- Provider economics. OpenRouter vs direct Anthropic API vs OpenAI vs local Llama on real monthly bills. Where BYOK saves you money. Where it doesn't.
Editorial principles
1. Real installs, real bills. Every tool we cover gets installed on hardware we're paying for, on accounts we're paying for. No vendor preview environments. No comp'd API credits. If we can't afford to test it, we say so.
2. Security before features. Every comparison leads with the threat model and sandbox story. A frictionless setup that ships unauthenticated tool execution by default is not a feature. It's a CVE waiting to happen — and we'll say so.
3. Boring is allowed. The right answer is often “put it behind Tailscale and update on a Tuesday.” We'll say it. The right answer is sometimes “don't self-host this — pay $9 a month for the managed version.” We'll say that too.
4. Disclosure or nothing. Affiliate links — when we use them — are flagged on every guide that contains them. Sponsored mentions in the newsletter (eventually) will be visually segregated and clearly labelled. We never accept money to change a comparison ranking.
5. Update or unpublish. When a guide goes stale — version mismatches, broken commands, deprecated APIs — we update it or we add an explicit “outdated” banner. We never let old guides quietly mislead new readers.
Who's actually behind this
PocketClaw is built and written by Robin Monteiro — a developer based in Europe who spent too many late nights debugging things that should have just worked. The site is built with Next.js, Supabase for the small bits of auth that exist, AWS SES for newsletter delivery, and Stripe for the eventual Pro tier. Every piece of that stack is something we'd recommend to a friend on its merits, not its referral fees.
The business model, in plain terms
We make money three ways, in roughly this order:
- Pro membership ($9/month or $49/year, launching Q3 2026): unlocks the full archive of deep audits, members-only Discord, migration scripts, and security alerts ahead of the public newsletter. Cancel any time. 14-day refund window. The membership exists to keep us editorially independent — not to pay for VC return.
- Affiliate links on a small list of tools we actually use (OpenRouter, Hetzner, Cloudflare, Tailscale, etc.). Disclosed every time.
- Newsletter sponsorships — eventually, once the audience is big enough to justify them and we've built the disclosure conventions to keep them clean.
What we don't do: display ads, sponsored articles disguised as editorial, paywalled comparison content, “best of” lists where the ranking depends on who paid, exit-intent popups, dark-pattern subscription flows, or any of the standard publishing-industry self-harm.
Why “PocketClaw”?
The name comes from the original 2025 project: pocket-sized hardware, lobster-claw mascot inherited from OpenClaw culture. We considered renaming when the project pivoted, but the audience we'd already built knew us by this name, the URLs were indexed, and the brand fit the new direction (still scrappy, still technical, still poking at things).
The name stays. The hardware experiments are archived under /app for the people who liked that chapter. New writing focuses on the post-OpenClaw landscape.
Get in touch
Reply to any newsletter — we read every one. Ping @Pocket_claw on X. Email contact@pocketclaw.dev for press, partnership, or anything that needs more than 280 characters.
For tip-offs about new vulnerabilities, abandoned projects, or tools we should be testing, the same email reaches us — we read encrypted email if you need that, just say so in the subject.
See also: how we got here, where we're going, pricing, newsletter.