Clawdbot
Basic Information
- Company/Brand: Peter Steinberger (Personal Project)
- Country/Region: Austria
- Official Website: No longer exists (now openclaw.ai)
- Type: Open Source Project (Predecessor of OpenClaw)
- Founded: November 2025
Product Description
Clawdbot was the original name of the OpenClaw project, first released by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger in November 2025. The name hinted at a connection with Anthropic's Claude (pronounced similarly to "Clawd"), while the "bot" suffix indicated its robotic/agent nature.
From the outset, Clawdbot was designed as a personal AI assistant running on users' local devices, interacting through messaging apps like WhatsApp. It quickly gained significant attention within a few months of its release. However, in January 2026, Anthropic filed a trademark complaint, arguing that "Clawdbot" was too similar to their product "Claude" and could cause confusion.
This trademark dispute prompted Steinberger to rename the project to "Moltbot" on January 27, 2026, and then to "OpenClaw" just three days later. Despite the name change, Clawdbot, as the project's origin, left an important mark in the history of open-source AI agents. Renowned tech media like Pragmatic Engineer reported on Steinberger's development philosophy with titles such as "The creator of Clawd: 'I ship code I don't read.'"
Core Features/Characteristics
- Functionality largely consistent with the current OpenClaw
- Initially focused on WhatsApp integration as a core selling point
- Runs on users' local devices
- Supports multiple LLM models
- Autonomous task execution capabilities
Business Model
Free open-source project with no commercial fees.
Target Users
Early adopters, tech enthusiasts, developer community.
Competitive Advantages
- One of the first open-source projects to deeply integrate AI agents with messaging apps
- Founder's technical influence and community appeal
- Rapid development iteration speed
Market Performance
Gained immense community attention within a few months, rapidly growing to hundreds of thousands of GitHub stars. The trademark dispute and subsequent renaming actually increased the project's visibility.
Relationship with the OpenClaw Ecosystem
Clawdbot was the original name and predecessor of OpenClaw. The project's core philosophy and architecture remained unchanged during the renaming process, with all code and features from the Clawdbot era continuing into OpenClaw.
Sources
External References
Learn more from these authoritative sources: