OpenMausBot Review: Free AI Agents in a Chat App, on Your Machine

OpenMausBot is a free, open-source desktop app that turns the AI subscriptions you already pay for into a team of agents you talk to like chat contacts. Each bot runs on the Claude, Codex, or Grok command-line tool installed on your machine, with its own model, its own computer, and its own connected apps. The app itself costs nothing. The bills come from the subscriptions and the optional cloud computers underneath it, and this review works through both, with every price checked against the live pages on November 9, 2026.

The project is moving fast. Its GitHub repository, milind-soni/OpenMausBot, held 18,779 stars and 2,588 forks when checked on November 9, 2026, and its latest release, v0.1.150, shipped the same morning. It started on August 11, 2026 as OpenGrokBot, a recreation of xAI's Grok Bot shape, and it now sits fifth in a weekly GitHub AI trending roundup after gaining 5,580 stars in a week. That is attention, not proof of quality, and this article sticks to what the code and the pricing pages actually say.

What OpenMausBot actually is

OpenMausBot is a Telegram-style chat app for your desktop where every contact in the sidebar is a real AI agent. You give each bot a personality, a model, and a job, then talk to it in plain language. A writing bot can run Claude while a refactoring bot runs Codex in the same workspace, and you can switch a bot's model mid-conversation without losing the thread. The project describes itself as an independent, open-source alternative to Grok Bot, Meta Muse, OpenAI dots, and Cue by Manus, and it states plainly that it is not affiliated with xAI, Meta, OpenAI, or Manus.

Nothing is proxied through a server the project operates, because it operates none. A small harness server on 127.0.0.1 owns every agent process, and transcripts, keys, and events live in a folder called ~/.openmausbot on your own disk. That local-first design is the whole pitch: your models, your machine, your data. It follows the same idea as OpenClaw, the free assistant you text from WhatsApp, but the agents here live in a desktop chat app instead of a messaging service. It also means the app cannot do anything while your computer is off, a limit the project is honest about and one that matters later in this review.

The app runs on macOS, Windows, and Ubuntu 24.04 x64, with signed and notarized installers for Mac. The Windows installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen shows an "unknown publisher" warning and asks you to click through it. Ubuntu is still in beta. You need at least one agent command-line tool, claude, codex, or grok, installed and logged in before the first bot can do anything.

How the bots work

Three pieces make the app useful: computers, approvals, and connected apps.

Every bot gets a computer. You can give it a cloud Linux desktop from Boat, an isolated local virtual machine, or, after an explicit opt-in, your own computer. The cloud desktop spins up with a live screen preview while the bot works, and you can open the desktop in your browser and take over. Host control is available on macOS and Ubuntu Xorg. On Ubuntu Wayland it stays disabled while the project's safety gate, tracked as issue #345, remains unresolved. The project is careful here: local bot control starts only after you opt in, and the app never enables it silently.

Every risky action needs your say. Shell commands, file edits, and questions surface as inline cards in the chat, and you tap Allow or Deny, or answer in the chat. The same approval flow applies whether the bot sits on a cloud desktop or on your own machine. That is a real difference from tools that log actions for you to audit afterwards. Here the decision happens before the action runs.

Connected apps come through Composio. You authenticate once with Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Notion, Linear, or one of hundreds of other apps, and every bot can then use them as tools. Bots can also talk back: press the speaker on any reply, or call a bot and have a spoken conversation. Voices come from ElevenLabs, Fish Audio, Grok, the built-in Mac voices, or a local Chatterbox server, and each needs its own key where the provider charges for one.

Beyond single bots, the app supports channels with their own transcripts and rosters, group chats where bots can be mentioned and delegate to each other, scheduled routines and webhook triggers, and one-click team installs from Markdown files on BotMRR. A headless command-line mode and a Model Context Protocol server let scripts and other tools drive the team. All of that is in the README, and none of it was hands-on tested for this review, so treat the feature list as the project's own description, not a verified test result.

What it costs

OpenMausBot has no paid tier, no seat count, and no locked features. The code is Apache 2.0 licensed, with one exception: the enterprise folder is source-available under its own license, so deleting that folder leaves the open-source edition. Your only costs are the services underneath it, and they split into three buckets.

Two of those buckets deserve a closer look, because they are where the real money goes. First, the model subscriptions. You need only one of the three CLIs to start, and the cheapest entry point is a single $20-a-month plan, which is about £14.94 or CA$28.20 at November 9, 2026 rates. If you already pay for Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus, that is $40 a month, or about £29.88 or CA$56.41, and OpenMausBot adds nothing on top. That is the honest comparison with Grok Bot, which needs The X Subscription Premium at $30 a month, about £22.41 or CA$42.31, before it does anything at all.

Second, the cloud computers. Boat sells full Ubuntu virtual machines billed per second while they run. A small sandbox with 2 vCPU and 4 GB of RAM costs $0.018 an hour, the default 4 vCPU and 8 GB machine costs $0.036 an hour, and a default machine running for a full month costs $26, about £19.42 or CA$36.67. Plans start at $20 a month, and that $20 comes back as sandbox time, so a light month still bills $20 and the unused credit expires. The 7-day trial gives 25 compute hours with a card on file. Boat runs in Germany, Finland, and France only, so there is no US or Asia region, and stopped sandboxes cost nothing while their disks are kept for at least 14 days. All of those figures come from Boat's own pricing page, checked on November 9, 2026.

One cost that is easy to miss: Composio's free tier covers 100,000 tool calls a month and pauses at the cap, so it cannot surprise you. Past that, Pro costs $29 a month, about £21.67 or CA$40.90, with tool calls at $0.0003 each after the first 100,000. For most personal use the free tier is enough, and the hard cap is the feature that makes it safe to connect.

Currency conversions in this article use November 9, 2026 market rates of $1 = £0.7471 and $1 = CA$1.4102, and they are approximations. The subscriptions themselves are billed in US dollars.

Setting it up in five steps

Installation is straightforward, and the README documents each step. The app ships as a desktop download, and the harness server is embedded, so there is no separate server to configure.

1. Install one agent CLI and sign in. Install the claude, codex, or grok command-line tool and log in with the subscription you already hold. The claude CLI is Claude Code, Anthropic's agentic coding tool, which also works on its own in the terminal. OpenMausBot finds installed CLIs on its own and shows them in the model picker.
2. Download the app. Get the latest release from openmausbot.com/download or the project's GitHub releases page. Mac builds are signed and notarized; the Windows installer will show a SmartScreen warning because it is not code-signed yet.
3. Create your first bot. Pick a model for it from the provider rail, give it a name and instructions, and start chatting. Each bot keeps its own thread and memory of that thread.
4. Decide what computer it gets. Leave it on your own machine, or add a Boat API key in App Settings to give bots cloud desktops. Local virtual machines are the middle option if you want isolation without a monthly plan.
5. Connect your apps. Add a Composio project key in App Settings, authenticate once with Gmail, Slack, GitHub, or Notion, and the bots can use them as tools. Set approval rules before you hand a bot a mailbox, not after.

From source, the same setup is a git clone plus pnpm install, with Node 24 or newer, and the server and app start on 127.0.0.1. A terminal install is also available with npm install -g openmausbot, and a phone companion can pair over Tailscale or an HTTPS endpoint, though hosted and mobile connectivity is still being built.

OpenMausBot vs Grok Bot

Grok Bot is the product OpenMausBot is modeled on, so the comparison is the one most readers actually want. The project's own comparison page, updated November 8, 2026, lays it out line by line, and the table below follows it.

The trade is plain. Grok Bot is the better product if you want agents that keep working while your laptop is shut and a system that can learn a workflow by watching you do it once. OpenMausBot is the better choice if you already pay for Claude, Codex, or Grok and want to use them all, want a different model per bot, need your data on your own disk, or have a security review to pass. The two are not exclusive, and trying OpenMausBot costs an install and nothing else.

The catches to know before you install it

OpenMausBot is early software, and the README says so. Hosted and mobile connectivity is still being built, so the desktop is the real product today and the phone companion is a work in progress. Webhook triggers use a local receiver rather than an always-on hosted relay, which means the app must stay running to receive them.

Three things deserve attention before you connect anything sensitive. First, API keys are saved as plaintext in a private config.json file, with 0600 permissions on Unix, according to the README. The interface never reads them back, which is good practice, but the file itself is not encrypted, so full-disk encryption on your machine is doing the real work. Second, giving a bot control of your own computer is an explicit opt-in on macOS and Ubuntu Xorg, and it stays disabled on Wayland for a reason. Treat that opt-in as a security decision, not a setup checkbox. Third, the README carries a warning that OpenMausBot has no cryptocurrency token, and any coin using its name is unrelated to the project. That warning exists because scammers have already tried.

There are smaller limits too. The enterprise folder in the repository is source-available under its own license, not Apache 2.0, so the "free and open source" label applies to the app minus that folder. Voice calls need a cloud key for ElevenLabs, Fish Audio, or Grok, and only the Mac voices and a local Chatterbox server are free. Boat's cloud desktops are EU-only and billed from a $20 monthly plan even in a light month. And 18,779 stars is a popularity signal, not a quality guarantee: the repository also lists more than 850 open issues and pull requests, and the project itself calls the software early but real.

Who should use it

OpenMausBot fits people who already pay for at least one of Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, or a Grok plan and want those subscriptions to do more than sit in a chat window. It fits developers who want agents in a messaging interface without handing their work to another cloud, and teams that want to share a whole department of bots as a single file. It also fits anyone who has been waiting for an open-source version of the Grok Bot shape and is comfortable with early software.

It does not fit people who need agents running overnight on a machine they carry home, or a phone-first experience, or a product that learns workflows by observation. For those, Grok Bot's cloud model is still ahead, and the project's own comparison page says so. If you only want one assistant in one window, a plain Claude or ChatGPT subscription already does that for the same $20 a month, and OpenMausBot adds nothing you need. If you would rather text a single assistant than manage a team of them, our roundup of seven AI agents you can text covers the simpler alternatives.

Is OpenMausBot really free?

Yes, the app itself is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license, with no paid tier or locked features. You still pay for the model subscriptions that power the bots, and for Boat cloud desktops and Composio Pro only if you choose to use them.

Do I need a Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok subscription to use it?

You need at least one. The bots run on the claude, codex, or grok command-line tools installed on your machine, so the subscription you already hold is what pays for the thinking. Any one of the three is enough to start.

Can OpenMausBot control my computer?

It can, but only after you explicitly opt in, and only on macOS and Ubuntu Xorg. On Ubuntu Wayland the feature stays disabled while the project's safety gate is unresolved. You can also give bots an isolated local virtual machine or a Boat cloud desktop instead of your own machine.

How is OpenMausBot different from Grok Bot?

Both put a roster of AI bots in a messaging app, but Grok Bot runs in xAI's cloud behind a $30-a-month plan and picks the model for you, while OpenMausBot runs on your machine, lets you pick a model per bot, and costs nothing itself. Grok Bot still leads on learning by watching and working with your laptop closed.

Is OpenMausBot safe to install?

The code is public under Apache 2.0, which means anyone can read it before installing, and the project keeps transcripts and keys on your disk rather than in its cloud. Two things to handle yourself: API keys are stored as plaintext in a local config file, so use full-disk encryption, and only enable control of your own computer after you understand what it allows.

OpenMausBot is a strong answer to a specific question: what if the agent team lived in a chat app on your machine, on subscriptions you already pay for, instead of in someone else's cloud on a new plan? At 18,779 stars and a release shipped this morning, it is the open-source project to watch in that space. Download it from openmausbot.com, start with one bot and one subscription, and connect your apps only after the approval cards feel familiar.

Sources

• OpenMausBot on GitHub: repository, README, license, and release history, read November 9, 2026
• openmausbot.com: official site and downloads
• Grok Bot vs MausBot: a feature-by-feature comparison: OpenMausBot blog, updated November 8, 2026
• Boat pricing: sandbox sizes, plan prices, and trial terms
• Claude pricing: Pro, Max, and Ultra plans
• Composio pricing: Hobby and Pro plans, tool-call limits
• OpenMausBot review: local-first Claude and Codex agents: Hysen Labs, star history and limitations
• OpenMausBot: your AI agents, living in a chat: Frontier Now, September 28, 2026
• RateMorph USD to GBP, November 9, 2026: exchange rate used for GBP and CAD conversions