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AI · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Willow

Own your personal AI agent. Runs locally.

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1

    Stabilize AI agents & reduce token costs by 82%

    Mar 2026 · willow-intelligence.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    As the Home Assistant project says, it's the year of voice! I love Home Assistant and I've always thought the ESP BOX[0] hardware is cool. I finally got around to starting a project to use the ESP BOX hardware with Home Assistant and other platforms. Why? - It's actually "Alexa/Echo competitive". Wake word detection, voice activity detection, echo cancellation, automatic gain control, and high quality audio for $50 means with Willow and the support of Home Assistant there are no compromises on looks, quality, accuracy, speed, and cost. - It's cheap. With a touch LCD display, dual…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3
    Clawi.ai▲428

    OpenClaw in the Cloud with Zero Setup and on 24/7

    Feb 2026 · clawi.ai · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Hey HN! We were part of YC S24, ended up pivoting around. Made dictation that worked really well, and decided to go all in on agentic. We've done two major things. 1. Scribe is a revamp of our product. Continually learns your style (can get into details if comments want). TLDR; we fingerprint based off your edits, and make dictation sound more and more like you. Post-trained Llama 3.1 8b. 2. Dictation is completely free. Unlimited unpersonalized dictation for everyone.

    Jul 2026 · willowvoice.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    The stack: two agents on separate boxes. The public one (nullclaw) is a 678 KB Zig binary using ~1 MB RAM, connected to an Ergo IRC server. Visitors talk to it via a gamja web client embedded in my site. The private one (ironclaw) handles email and scheduling, reachable only over Tailscale via Google's A2A protocol. Tiered inference: Haiku 4.5 for conversation (sub-second, cheap), Sonnet 4.6 for tool use (only when needed). Hard cap at $2/day. A2A passthrough: the private-side agent borrows the gateway's own inference pipeline, so there's one API key and one billing relationship…

    Mar 2026 · georgelarson.me · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    Buda▲197

    Run a full AI agent team in the cloud — no hardware, no setup. Persistent memory, browser automation, parallel agents. The OpenClaw alternative built for teams. Start free.

    May 2026 · buda.im · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    An open source terminal agent that builds its own skills

    Jun 2026 · hermes-agent.nousresearch.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Your own AI employee that runs 24/7 with no set up

    Feb 2026 · hostedclaws.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9
    Xiryn▲88

    The open-source personal agent that runs on your computer

    10d ago · xiryn.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Deploy a personal AI Agent on your own computer quickly

    Apr 2026 · nutstudio.ai · its alternatives →

  11. 11
    Local▲107

    Super excited to launch our new app Local today. What we’ve learned at Base Compute over the last months is that running AI directly on your laptop or workstation gives you maximum privacy and it’s free, but it’s also a massive headache to configure. So we’ve decided what matters is making the experience completely frictionless for users. Local analyses the hardware of your laptop, optimises the AI for it, and recommends the best models for your specific device. It let’s you do what you’re doing with cloud AI already, just for free and on your own machine: Chatting with PDF’s, Recording and…

    Aug 2026 · basecompute.co · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    LapuAi▲68

    Desktop-native AI agent for every app, file & browser

    Jul 2026 · lapu.ai · its alternatives →

  13. 13
    Quietly▲59

    Offline AI IDE & local Chat

    May 2026 · quietlycode.org · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Free Private AI App for Mac - Image Gen, AI Agents & Chat

    2025 · claraverse.netlify.app · its alternatives →

  15. 15OC

    CloudBot gives you a fully configured AI employee with its own cloud computer in one click. Built on OpenClaw. What you get: - Full Ubuntu desktop environment in the cloud - Pre-installed AI agent that sees the screen and controls the computer - 24/7 availability - your AI keeps working while you sleep - Uses your own API keys for AI models - Starting at $69/month The AI can use VS Code, browse the web, run terminal commands, manage files - anything you'd do on a real desktop. I wake up to completed code reviews, finished research reports, and updated documentation. Built this…

    Feb 2026 · cloudbot-ai.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Hey HN! Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home have sold hundreds of millions of devices. Unfortunately, they come with less-than-ideal things like an always on microphone (doing who knows what), data collection, and limited integration options. Echo devices especially also end up being advertising billboards you pay for and install in your own home. No thanks, I've already heard of the Barbie movie... Willow is an open source hardware and supporting software voice assistant platform. For $50 Willow hardware (from Espressif) is competitive with commercial products in every regard…

    2023 · heywillow.io · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hi HN folks ! I am the author of AVA, a self hosted AI Voice Agent that plugs into Asterisk/Freepbx so you own all the aspects of an AI Voice agent in your own infrastructure. It uses Asterisk native Audiosocket/RTP with python engine to run STT,LLM and TTS loop. The project support several full providers openai, gemini, grok, elevenlabs out of the box and also provides options to build custom pipelines by choosing different stt tts and llm. It also supports full local agent if you have a GPU with 25GB RAM which enables realtime conversation along with tool calling. I started this…

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18
    ClawCloudfree▲8

    Each agent runs on its own cloud computer/isolated container

    Feb 2026 · runlobster.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    AI that actually controls your Windows/Mac desktop - clicks, types, automates workflows across any application. Native OS integration, not cloud APIs. Built this because I was tired of AI that could only chat. Free tier (Gemini) + paid tier (Claude) for reliable automation. The AI can automate complex workflows, manage files/emails, control browsers and native apps. Just launched 2 weeks ago. What workflows would you want automated?

    2025 · aioscompanion.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Local AI that acts. Not chats. Installs in 30 seconds. 🦎

    Mar 2026 · skales.app · its alternatives →

  21. 21
    Clawy▲3

    OpenClaw in the cloud — no Mac Mini, no setup, $9/mo

    Mar 2026 · useclawy.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22
    Aisance▲19

    Your AI Desktop Companion (macOS & Windows)

    2025 · aisance.app · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Automate tasks with local LLMs, offline.

    May 2026 · librixsoft.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    One-click AI employee with its own cloud desktop

    Feb 2026 · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →