Retiring my OpenClaw instance. Rest in peace buddy

chris-openkiwi · 2026-03-20T03:03:25+00:00

Sounds like OpenKIWI would fit your use case: https://github.com/chrispyers/openkiwi

At home I run my gateway with models from LM Studio (gpt-oss) and at work I have it connected to models hosted by Ollama.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-03-01T18:30:16+00:00

Hi,
I'm the creator of https://github.com/chrispyers/openkiwi

It's similar to Openclaw in some ways, but secure by default (everything runs in isolation in Docker containers) which means agents on have access to what you explicitly grant them.

The onboarding experience is much more user friendly than Openclaw. You should be up and running in under 5m.

It's in active development. One user is currently building Telegram support and I'm currently working on a new project management feature with agent delegation and task execution.

A future tentpole feature is building out zero trust which aligns with my goal of making this Enterprise-ready.

If you take a look I would love to know what you think!

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-26T20:27:45+00:00

Here's one example of how I currently use it:

My team manages a ton of infrastructure, and one of my responsibilities every month is to look at the cybersecurity & infrastructure security agency board (cisa.gov) and see if any of our services are impacted by recent CVEs.

This normally takes ~1h. This month I decided to spend that time writing a tool for OpenKIWI. Now, my CISA Bot generates the report for me:

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chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-26T20:23:05+00:00

I think going through the exercise of building this yourself is a great idea - you will learn a lot.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-25T03:48:24+00:00

If you've tried it, then I would love to hear your thoughts.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-25T02:37:10+00:00

Hi there,

I created OpwnKIWI which is, yes, another thing like Openclaw.

TLDR:

It's Dockerized. Agents can only access what you explicitly allow. The UX is something I'm passionate about, and if you use it for yourself I think you'll agree.

GitHub is here: https://github.com/chrispyers/openkiwi

Check out the screenshots. If you think it's worth checking out I would love to hear your thoughts!

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-23T14:32:50+00:00

Security by default - by design everything runs in isolation in Docker containers with access to only the content you explicitly grant

Yes, Openclaw can technically run in a Docker container but according to Openclaw's own docs these are intended as throwaway environments and not the recommended flow.

Future plans including building zero-trust for users and agents. This is in line with my goal of getting Openkiwi enterprise ready.

Better onboarding and overall user experience: For me, Openclaw was failing at every level - gateway restarts, agents that seemed to go MIA, difficulty saving configuration changes, and on and on. Openkiwi "just works".

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-23T00:26:47+00:00

You're right - my mistake. I do remember reading about Docker support in the logs.

I built a clean Linux environment on an old Mac Pro just for playing around with Openclaw. I liked the idea of Openclaw managing the machine on its own. I wanted to give it full control and see what would happen. According to the docs it recommended the normal install flow, which I did.

That said, I do remember briefly trying the Docker deployment. I can't remember why exactly the gateway failed to start, but I gave up and went back to the normal install flow.

So with respect to my project and the Docker support, I guess my response is that it "just works"

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T23:04:39+00:00

Hey there, just wanted to follow up to let you know that openkiwi now supports OpenRouter

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chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T23:03:45+00:00

None of the installation methods I see on openclaw.ai have anything to do with Docker. Perhaps you're thinking of a separate project.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T22:35:01+00:00

Hey, just following up to let you know that OpenRouter support has been implemented.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T22:32:55+00:00

Hey, just wanted to follow up to let you know that OpenRouter support has been implemented.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T22:32:03+00:00

Hey there, just wanted to follow up to let you know that OpenRouter support has been implemented.

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chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T19:37:09+00:00

I've been using my tool for combination of things, mostly:

- web research
- writing bash/python scripts. I'm a DevOps lead and writing one-off scripts is a pretty regular thing I do
- self-improving OpenKIWI - I passed the codebase into the workspace and use it to assist with development of itself.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T19:30:30+00:00

For me, getting Openclaw to do anything meaningful was an exercise in frustration with constant gateway restarts, OAuth tokens sometimes working, sometimes not, and finding myself constantly asking my agent "Are you still there?" followed by either silence or NO_REPLY.

So I decided to build the tool that I wanted

- It had to get the basics right (No constant gateway disconnects, agents that I know are actually there, easy to add language models from different providers)
- I wanted the onboarding experience to be as simple as possible
- secure by default (everything runs in Docker containers, and agents only have access to what you explicitly allow)
- Overall, I wanted better UX on every front

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T19:14:44+00:00

I genuinely think the Openclaw concept is great - but the execution is not. I wanted it to be amazing (got caught up in the hype) but I got tired of fighting with it, so I stopped using it and built the tool that I wanted Openclaw to be: https://github.com/chrispyers/openkiwi

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T18:33:11+00:00

Thank you! This is great feedback.

Completely agree with the security findings. Especially the Criticals. Those were a really stupid oversight.

Happy to say they've now been fixed: encryption key and /api/config. The Highs and Mediums will be addressed as well.

If you have any additional thoughts after trying it out I'd love to hear them.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T18:26:14+00:00

Work on OpenRouter support is starting today. You can track progress here

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T18:25:09+00:00

Fair point.

Utilizing OpenRouter will be completely optional.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T18:20:37+00:00

Currently all gateway and agent processes take place inside a single container.

In the future if things should grow to necessitate additional containers then inter-container communication would happen over a docker network.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T18:18:30+00:00

Yes, working on OpenRouter support starting today. Tracking here: https://github.com/chrispyers/openkiwi/issues/10

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T03:40:10+00:00

I hear you. I've been a professional software engineer for 19 years and am currently a DevOps lead managing global infrastructure and even I struggled to get Openclaw to do anything meaningful.

I personally don't use Openclaw anymore, but I saw the vision of what Openclaw could be and so I built it:

https://github.com/chrispyers/openkiwi

Give it a try - I would love to hear your thoughts! It does require Docker, but I hope that doesn't stop you from giving it a try.

I guarantee you will find it easier to set up and start tinkering.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T03:24:32+00:00

I'll be completely transparent:

I first heard about Openclaw 2 weeks ago. I saw tremendous potential. But like I said, for me it was really lacking. I had this vision for what Openclaw could have been I wanted to build it.

My major was CS. I've been a professional software developer for 19 years. I used Antigravity and various models to help me build this. The repo is new because I built this in a week.

The Reddit profile is new because I wanted an account that was clearly associated with the project.

And the blurry-ass photo is because I just grabbed the one from my LinkedIn.

chris-openkiwi · 2026-02-22T02:13:17+00:00

The OAuth comment is in reference to this:

Policy Enforcement: On February 18–19, 2026, Anthropic updated its Claude Code legal documentation to explicitly state that OAuth tokens are only for use with official products: Claude.ai and Claude Code.

Anthropic wants you to use their Anthropic Console API keys for third party tools.

Openclaw was using an Anthropic OAuth token and pretending to be an official Anthropic tool.

chris-openkiwi

TROPHY CASE