Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#91

Post by dmd » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

bobjordan wrote: post #24

Here is what I have my openclaw agent setup to do in my wsl environment on my 22 core development workstation in my office: #1) I can chat with the openclaw agent (his name is "Patch") through a telegram chat, and Patch can spawn a shared tmux instance on my 22 core development workstation. #2) I can then use the `blink` app on my iphone + tailscale and that allows me to use a command in blink `ssh dev` which connect…

> MULTIPLE CLAUDE CODE INSTANCES

a lotta yall still dont get it

molt holders can use multiple claude code instances on a single molt

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#92

Post by yunohn » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:35 PM UTC

scubbo wrote: post #82

yunohn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires know-how of self-hosting, and hopefully resulting security and safety, various API setup processes, etc. Feels far from Dropbox and closer to rsync tbh.

> and hopefully resulting security and safety I have some ~~bad~~ unsurprising news for you...

Believe me, I’m not holding any false hope that OpenClaw users are aware. Hence why this is nothing like Dropbox.

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#93

Post by avaer » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

jbetala7 wrote: post #26

run 6 OpenClaw agents as employees. Buddy is my PA and manages the others. Katy handles X/Twitter growth. Jerry scouts jobs. Burry trades crypto. Mike does security. Elon builds and ships. They run 24/7 on a VPS, share intelligence through a shared file, and coordinate in a Telegram group. Elon built and deployed an app overnight without being asked. Burry paper-traded to 77% win rate before going live. The setup too…

Poe's law is hitting me hard.

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#94

Post by ericsaf » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:41 PM UTC

Actually using it. Threw it on a spare box I had sitting around, mostly as a "second brain" rather than letting it run my life. Honestly, I've tried every PKM system out there—Obsidian, Notion, Roam, plain markdown—and never stuck with any of them. This is the first thing that's clicked. I just chat with it and it figures out what to file where. Everything's just .md files underneath, so I can grep it, git it, whatever. No lock-in. The stuff I'm actually finding useful: it sends me news digests on topics I care about a few times a day, and pings me with reminders via Telegram. Simple stuff, but it works. Could I build this with Claude Code and some glue? Sure. But this was basically working out of the box. Caveats: it chews through tokens fast, and I keep it completely cut off from anything sensitive—no email, no messages, nothing financial. The security story is basically "hope for the best" so I treat it accordingly.

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#95

Post by bobjordan » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

dmd wrote: post #91

bobjordan wrote: post #24

Here is what I have my openclaw agent setup to do in my wsl environment on my 22 core development workstation in my office: #1) I can chat with the openclaw agent (his name is "Patch") through a telegram chat, and Patch can spawn a shared tmux instance on my 22 core development workstation. #2) I can then use the `blink` app on my iphone + tailscale and that allows me to use a command in blink `ssh dev` which connect…

> MULTIPLE CLAUDE CODE INSTANCES a lotta yall still dont get it molt holders can use multiple claude code instances on a single molt

You are absolutely right that I probably still "don't" get it, I am still shocking myself on a daily basis with all the stuff I didn't fully get grasp ahold of. I recently updated claude code and yesterday had one agent that used the new task system and blew my mind with what he got accomplished. This tech is all moving so fast!

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#96

Post by grigio » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

it is interesting because of Memory, Cron and Telegram integrations, but most of the magic is done by the LLM model and Skills

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#97

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:58 PM UTC

ericsaf wrote: post #94

Actually using it. Threw it on a spare box I had sitting around, mostly as a "second brain" rather than letting it run my life. Honestly, I've tried every PKM system out there—Obsidian, Notion, Roam, plain markdown—and never stuck with any of them. This is the first thing that's clicked. I just chat with it and it figures out what to file where. Everything's just .md files underneath, so I can grep it, git it, whatev…

Can’t you self host and run your own tailscale? So everything is inside your own boundary

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#98

Post by geor9e » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

I've been using it lots. I just chat with it on Telegram and tell it to look stuff up on the internet. The results have been higher-quality than the other AI chats available. And I like how the response comes through as a chat notification on my phone, which feels more natural. It's somewhere between perplexity and chatgpt/gemini deep research in speed and accuracy, but without having to "approve a plan" or all that annoying slow stuff. I'm using the kimi model. Overall, it's just been a better experience. I haven't even bothered getting into the other capabilities it has yet.

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#99

Post by detroitwebsites » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

I've been running OpenClaw for about 2 weeks now. Here's my honest take:

What's great: - Having Claude in WhatsApp/Telegram is actually life-changing for quick tasks - The skills ecosystem is clever (basically plugins for AI) - Self-hosted means full control over data

What's not: - Token usage can get expensive fast if you're not careful - Setup is intimidating for non-technical folks - The rebrand drama (Clawdbot → Moltbot → OpenClaw) didn't help trust

My setup: - Running in Docker on a cheap VPS - Using Anthropic API (not unofficial/scraped) - Strict rate limiting to avoid bill shock - Sandbox mode enabled

Is it worth it? For me, yes. But I wouldn't recommend it to my non-technical friends without a solid setup guide.

Re: Ask HN: Any real OpenClaw (Clawd Bot/Molt Bot) users? What's your experience?

#100

Post by emp17344 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #22

You're asking for user stories of... a tool that almost looks like designed for faking user stories online.

Check out some of the users hyping this up here… many of them are low karma and posting in this thread for the first time in years, both of which are red flags for bot activity.