2026.
Everything we've published on 2026 across guides, agents, hardware reviews and glossary entries — 17 entries in total.
Guides (2)
- Best hardware for self-hosted AI (2026): Pi 5, Intel NUC, Mac Mini, Orange Pi testedAI Agents · 2026-04-30
Honest hands-on hardware buyer's guide for self-hosted AI agents in 2026. Raspberry Pi 5, Intel NUC and clones, Mac Mini M4, Framework Laptop, Orange Pi 5 Plus — real benchmarks, real bills, concrete recommendations by budget.
- Self-hosted AI news & trends — Q2 2026 state of the ecosystemAI Agents · 2026-06-02
PocketClaw's quarterly state-of-the-ecosystem report. The agents that grew, the agents that died, the CVE landscape, the hardware that won, the providers that stopped being interesting. Hard numbers from public sources, opinions credited.
Agents (2)
- OpenClaw
The original viral self-hosted AI agent. Post-crisis 2026.4 line is genuinely safer; pre-2026.3 is genuinely dangerous.
- Hermes Agent
Post-OpenClaw safe default. Docker-sandboxed by default, multi-LLM, opinionated. The agent we'd hand a colleague today.
Hardware (8)
- Raspberry Pi 5
The default starting point for pocket AI in 2026. 4–8 GB of LPDDR4X, ARM Cortex-A76, sub-€100, runs Hermes Agent (no browser tool) or Nanobot comfortably.
- Intel NUC 13 / Mini PC
Mini PCs at €300–600 with i5/i7 + 16–32 GB RAM. The sweet spot for self-hosted AI agents that need browser automation and decent local model performance.
- Mac Mini M4 / M4 Pro
The single best small-form-factor host for local LLMs in 2026. Apple Silicon unified memory makes 70B-class models tractable on a desk-sized machine.
- Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
€20 SBC with 512 MB RAM. Useful as an edge agent endpoint (sensor reader, tool host) but not a primary agent host.
- Geekom IT13 / generic Intel mini PC
Sub-€500 mini PC with i7-13620H, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD. The pragmatic alternative to the Intel NUC.
- Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q (used)
€150–250 used Ryzen mini PC. 16 GB RAM, NVMe slot, runs Hermes Agent comfortably. The budget winner.
- Minisforum UM790 Pro
Ryzen 9 7940HS mini PC. 32–64 GB RAM. The best Linux mini PC value at €700-900.
- Dell OptiPlex 3070 / 5070 Micro (used)
€100–180 used Intel mini PC. 8th gen i5, 8–16 GB RAM, NVMe. The cheapest credible mini PC for self-hosted AI.
Glossary (5)
- OpenClaw — Open-source autonomous AI agent created by Peter Steinberger in November 2025. Most-installed self-hosted agent of 2026.
- Hermes Agent — Open-source self-hosted AI agent from Nous Research, released February 2026. Sandboxed by default, multi-LLM.
- CVE-2026-25253 — Critical 1-click remote code execution vulnerability in OpenClaw versions before 2026.2.10. CVSS 9.6.
- Hetzner — German VPS and dedicated server provider. The cheapest credible EU option for self-hosting in 2026.
- Llama — Meta's family of open-weight large language models. Llama 3.3 70B is the leading open frontier model in 2026.