January 31, 2026
Claw vs clout: choose your fighter
Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?
Viral AI helper faces the roast: toy, unsafe, or just clout chasing
TLDR: An Ask HN post hunted for real OpenClaw users and mostly found skeptics: people reported high costs, setup failures, and security worries, plus gripes about hype-heavy marketing. The big takeaway: lots of viral claims, very few verified wins—raising questions about safety, reliability, and whether the buzz is real.
OpenClaw—the buzzy “AI assistant” that supposedly books trips, starts companies, and even YOLOs into the stock market—hit Hacker News looking for real users. The crowd showed up with receipts and side-eye. The loudest vibe: fun demo, big hype. One user shrugged it off as “just a toy” that gives a quick “oh wow” and then gathers dust. Another called it an “overhyped wrapper”—basically a chat bot glued to a scheduled script.
The real drama? Security and trust. A tester said it was “cute but amazingly insecure,” complaining it installed whatever it wanted and demanded chat apps for control. Others piled on with busted experiences: someone burned tons of AI credits link, another noped out over security link, one couldn’t even install it due to sandboxing link, and the hyped “Moltbook” notebook feature flatlined link.
Then came the marketing meltdown. A commenter called the Twitter flood a “masterclass in spammy marketing,” wondering if any of it translates to real users. The zinger of the day: if this thing runs itself, what stops it from posting fake success stories? Ouch. Verdict from the peanut gallery: until someone shows a real, boring, useful win, this looks more clout than claw.
Key Points
- •The post asks for real user experiences with OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot).
- •Anecdotes claim OpenClaw can autonomously plan travel, start companies, and trade stocks (with losses reported).
- •The author cannot find OpenClaw users in their own communities and suspects setup complexity and apprehension as barriers.
- •HN scanning found mostly conceptual discussion and a few reports of failures: high token use, security concerns, sandboxing/installation issues, and Moltbook not working.
- •The author suspects hype and requests concrete examples of useful or interesting outcomes achieved with OpenClaw.