We tested Nanoclaw and Openclaw in the same agent pipeline: one intake step, one planner, one execution chain, and one audit output. Both can deliver solid demos. The separation appears once traffic rises and exceptions become normal.
Where Nanoclaw wins
Nanoclaw fits small teams that need predictable behavior quickly. It has fewer knobs and less policy scaffolding, which is useful when there is one builder and limited SRE support. If your goal is to ship a bounded internal workflow in one sprint, Nanoclaw is usually faster.
Where Openclaw wins
Openclaw is better when policy boundaries and traceability matter more than setup speed. We found it easier to enforce explicit step contracts and to expose debugging metadata at each handoff. If your team expects multiple contributors touching agent behavior weekly, Openclaw scales better organizationally.
Decision rule we now use
- If team size is under four and use-cases are narrow, start with Nanoclaw.
- If auditability, safety policy, or multi-team collaboration is core, start with Openclaw.
- If uncertain, run both in parallel on one workflow for two weeks and compare incident cost, not only latency.
Bottom line: choose based on the failure mode your team can absorb. If your organization cannot tolerate opaque incidents, optimize for clarity first. If your constraint is immediate delivery, optimize for minimal setup and tight scope.