ZeroClaw (zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw) is a full-featured reimplementation of OpenClaw written in Rust, created by a team from Harvard, MIT, and the Sundai.Club community.
Taglined “Fast, small, and fully autonomous AI personal assistant infrastructure — ANY OS, ANY PLATFORM,” ZeroClaw achieves remarkable performance: a ~3.4 MB binary, under 5 MB RAM usage, and boots in under 10ms — approximately 400x faster than the original OpenClaw. It supports 22+ AI providers.
ZeroClaw supports Linux, macOS, and Windows, as well as ARM, x86, and RISC-V architectures. It features a `zeroclaw migrate openclaw` command to import existing OpenClaw config and memory. Security is a top priority with built-in pairing, sandboxing, and allowlisting.
Mirrors and community forks include: openagen/zeroclaw, theonlyhennygod/zeroclaw, Pendia/ZeroClaw-AI-OpenClaw-in-Rust, and bigdatasciencegroup/openclaw-rust-zeroclaw.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ZeroClaw faster than OpenClaw?
Yes — dramatically so. ZeroClaw boots in under 10ms vs. several seconds for OpenClaw, uses under 5 MB RAM vs. OpenClaw’s ~390 MB, and its binary is 3.4 MB vs. OpenClaw’s multi-hundred-MB npm installation. The ZeroClaw team describes this as approximately 400x faster boot time. This is possible because ZeroClaw is written in Rust and compiled to a native binary, while OpenClaw requires the Node.js runtime.
What language is ZeroClaw written in?
ZeroClaw is written entirely in Rust. It was created by a team from Harvard, MIT, and the Sundai.Club community — hence the academic pedigree. The Rust choice gives it memory safety guarantees alongside the performance benefits.
Can I migrate from OpenClaw to ZeroClaw?
Yes. ZeroClaw includes a zeroclaw migrate openclaw command that imports your existing OpenClaw config and memory. This makes it straightforward to trial ZeroClaw without losing your existing setup.
What architectures does ZeroClaw support?
ZeroClaw supports Linux, macOS, and Windows, across ARM, x86, and RISC-V architectures. This broad architecture support makes it suitable for everything from Apple Silicon Macs to Raspberry Pi ARM boards to RISC-V development boards.
How does ZeroClaw compare to NullClaw?
Both are minimal reimplementations, but ZeroClaw is written in Rust (3.4 MB, under 5 MB RAM) while NullClaw is written in Zig (678 KB, ~1 MB RAM). NullClaw is technically smaller and lighter, but ZeroClaw has more stars (29K vs 6.8K) and a more active community. See our full comparison for the details.