Grok Bot alternatives

[DannyB (Danny)]

I love Grok Bot but unfortunately the recent nuking of usage has forced me to consider alternatives. I’m putting this summary of my comparison from ChatGPT here.

I’m particularly interested in anyone’s experience with Rakazo vs Hermes Agent, especially in a multi-employee environment. I’m going to give Rakazo a go first, as soon as I can find the time.

Thanks!

Grok Bot alternatives — comparison of 20 platforms for team coding

Our requirements

• Windows desktop application: A proper Grok Bot-style interface with persistent bots, chats, group conversations, and preferably visible bot computers.

• Team sharing: Employees must be able to have private bots and share selected bots with other employees. Ideally, access can be restricted to specified employees.

• Computers: Ideally a shared computer for selected bots, or an isolated computer for each bot, with terminal, browser, filesystem and coding tools.

• Coding: Autonomous repository editing, debugging, running builds/tests, Git operations and delegation between bots.

• Memory: Per-bot and shared memory, ideally with human-editable Markdown. We already exported our Grok Bot memories into a Git repository of .md files and want to import them and periodically export updates back.

• Cloud inference: OpenRouter or direct model APIs. We don’t want to host the actual LLMs. We have a 256 GB RAM ESXi 6c/12t server without a GPU for hosting the bots and their computers.

• Licensing: Prefer free commercial self-hosting. Cloud inference costs are expected.

• Mobile: Native iOS/Android apps would be a bonus.

Comparison

= Supported; = Partial, requires configuration or is planned; = Doesn’t meet the requirement; — = Not established.

Software	Windows desktop	Shared/private employee bots	Shared/individual bot computers	Coding	Markdown/Git memory	Mobile	Free commercial self-hosting	Why ruled out / current status
Rakazo	Grok-like Electron app	Private spaces now; shared spaces just merged to main in PR #1935	Shared Team Computers and isolated Private Computers		Markdown import; export/conversion needed	iOS + Android	Apache 2.0	SHORTLISTED. Awaiting shared-spaces functionality and resolution of its browser-session security issue.
Hermes Agent	Bot Mode	Shared backend possible; no verified per-employee bot permissions in Desktop	Bot Screen; configurable shared/isolated containers		Direct Markdown files; hwiki plugin for Git Wiki	No official native mobile apps verified	MIT	SHORTLISTED. Main concern is the lack of built-in per-bot employee access controls.
MausBot / OpenMausBot	Grok-like app	Paid team edition	Per-bot desktops/VMs and team computers		File-based memory and structured exports	iOS + Android companions	Free core; shared employee bots paid	RULED OUT: Shared bots across employees require a paid licence ($299/month for self-hosted Business).
OpenBot		Team collaboration	Shared host/working directories; limited isolation	Multiple coding-agent engines	Database-backed memory; export conversion needed	iOS + Android	Current releases require a commercial licence	RULED OUT: Commercial use requires a paid licence. Older Apache-licensed releases exist.
OpenClaw	Windows Hub	Multi-agent/multi-user possible; isolation requires configuration	Configurable Docker sandboxes	Coding agents supported	Markdown files possible	Companion apps	MIT	Not shortlisted: More agent gateway/personal-assistant oriented; considerable configuration for secure employee sharing and a Grok Bot-like experience.
LibreChat	No official proper Windows desktop app	User/group agent permissions	Execution workspaces, not equivalent graphical bot desktops	Agent/code tools	Knowledge integration; no simple native Git memory round-trip	Mobile web		RULED OUT: No proper Windows desktop application.
Dify		Collaborative workspaces; edition-dependent permissions	Agent sandboxes	Agentic workflows	Knowledge bases, not Git-native bot memories	Mobile web	Licence conditions apply	RULED OUT: No proper Windows desktop application; more of an agent/workflow builder.
Open WebUI	Early-alpha desktop app	User/group permissions	Separate execution components	Coding tools/agents	Knowledge storage rather than Git-native memory	PWA	Free core; some business features paid	RULED OUT: Desktop experience isn’t yet comparable to Grok Bot’s integrated interface.
AnythingLLM	Standalone app	Multi-user permissions are in the separate server edition	Agent tools; full bot computers not integrated	General agents	Workspace memory/knowledge	Android	MIT core	RULED OUT: Desktop and multi-user server functionality don’t form one suitable Grok-style team application.
Agent Zero	Browser interface	Separate instances possible	Linux/container environments		File-backed/configurable	—	Open-source core	RULED OUT: No proper Windows desktop app or turnkey employee bot-sharing controls.
OpenManus		No mature team-management UI established	Agent tools/sandboxes	General autonomous tasks	Custom integration		Open source	RULED OUT: More of an agent framework than a multi-employee desktop bot platform.
AutoGPT	No comparable desktop client	Workflow collaboration	Tool execution, not persistent bot desktops	Automation-focused	Custom integration		Depends on component/edition	RULED OUT: Workflow automation rather than a Grok Bot-style persistent coding-teammate interface.
BabyAGI				Experimental	Custom		Open source	RULED OUT: Experimental framework, not a complete team bot application.
Open Interpreter	Primarily terminal/TUI	No equivalent employee bot management	Sandboxed command and computer tools		Files/AGENTS.md		Open source	RULED OUT: Powerful coding harness, but not a Grok Bot-style multi-user desktop application.
Dust	No comparable desktop app	Enterprise agent sharing	Tools/connectors rather than dedicated bot computers	General workplace agents	Managed knowledge sources	Mobile access	Paid hosted platform	RULED OUT: No suitable free self-hosting or Windows desktop experience.
Relevance AI	No comparable desktop app	Team agents/role controls	Tool/workflow execution	General agents	Managed knowledge	Mobile access	Paid platform	RULED OUT: Primarily a commercial agent automation service, not a self-hosted Grok Bot desktop replacement.
OpenCode		No comparable central employee bot-sharing system	Coding workspaces and terminal	Excellent coding focus	Repository instructions/files	No verified native apps	MIT	RULED OUT: Individual coding agent, not a multi-employee bot platform.
OpenHands	Primarily browser interface	Deployment-dependent	Sandboxed development environments		Repository knowledge	Mobile web	Open-source core	RULED OUT: No proper Windows desktop experience comparable to Grok Bot.
Cline	IDE extension, not standalone	No comparable shared-bot management	IDE/local terminal		Repository rules/files		Open source	RULED OUT: IDE coding assistant rather than a separate collaborative bot application.
Continue	IDE extension, not standalone	No comparable shared-bot management	IDE/workspace tools		Repository rules/files		Open-source core	RULED OUT: IDE-first coding assistant, not a persistent multi-employee bot desktop.

Our remaining two candidates

Rakazo is currently our preferred option because it is closer to Grok Bot’s desktop interface and provides shared or private graphical computers. However, PR #1935, which adds multi-employee shared spaces, only just merged to main on 5 November 2026 and is awaiting a release. The implementation shares bots, conversations and memory at the space level; it doesn’t provide private conversations for each employee using the same shared bot.

Hermes Agent has a larger developer ecosystem, strong coding functionality, a proper Windows Bot Mode interface, and very attractive Markdown memory integration. However, it doesn’t currently have a verified native mechanism for restricting individual bots to specified employees within the same Desktop backend. Separate gateways would be a workaround.

[AndrewC (Andrew)]

We are all seeking an alternative… due to grok bots usage.

But its hard to leave him cause of his full suite built in features…

[andrewbalan]

Nice comparison, thanks for posting it.

One correction to the requirements. Grok Bot on the Teams plan already covers two of the gaps you flagged in both finalists:

• Access for specific people only. A shared Bot can be open to the whole team or just to specific employees and groups. An admin sets this in Manage Shared Bots under the Access column.
• Private chats with the same Bot. Each employee’s chat is visible only to them, and even the Bot’s owner can’t see it. In a private chat, the Bot works on that employee’s computer and uses their connected accounts.

More details: Grok Bot for Teams and Enterprise | Cursor Docs and Shared Bots | Cursor Docs

So if usage is the only dealbreaker, it might be worth comparing that against what you’d actually spend on OpenRouter inference, keeping your own ESXi server running and setting up permissions. In my experience people tend to underestimate that part of self-hosting.

Out of curiosity, where are you burning through usage fastest: long coding sessions, routines or group chats? You can check the breakdown in Dashboard > Usage.

[DannyB (Danny)]

@andrewbalan Rakazo’s PR1935 to add team bot support just merged to main yesterday and is now awaiting a release.

It’s the Grok Bot usage that got nuked. I haven’t hit 100% on model usage. Bots that I can only talk to for a few hours a week are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Cursor Ultra buys you about 12 hours of Grok Bot usage per week at the new rates. I need to be able to talk to my bots every day. It might be a lot to ask, because it burns way more tokens than Cursor - but it is necessary.

My only plan for my Ultra sub this month is to export all my bots’ memory and files etc, finish off open PRs, and get the hell out of Grok Bot!

I was already using self-hosted cloud agents, and talking to bots in new single-bot group chats, and doing everything else possible to reduce usage.

I like that Rakazo and Hermes Agent are open-source. If I want a feature, I can look at their Issues, or just add the feature myself. Instead of being stuck in a proprietary ecosystem where everything is opaque.

TLDR: Elon’s killed the product.

An excellent product too. One that I and many others have grown to depend upon as our main development environment. I need freeing from that dependency, and Elon’s ability to frequently change things that my business depends upon, on a whim. I am taking back control. Unless Elon figures out Grok Bot’s usage issue (why is there still no Clear Chat button?!) then I predict an exodus.

[andrewbalan]

I understand. If the bot has become your main workspace, changes like this hit a lot harder than they do for users who only use it a couple of times a week.

A couple of thoughts since you’re planning to export your data:

• Don’t delete bots right away. When you delete a Bot, its profile, chats, and routines are removed, but files and logins on a shared computer stay behind and need to be cleaned up separately. If you might still need anything, it’s easier to hide the bot instead. More details in the docs: Work with Grok Bot | Cursor Docs
• Before drawing conclusions about limits, check Dashboard > Usage. It shows what’s being charged to your account and where it’s coming from. General pricing info is here: Models & Pricing | Cursor Docs

I fully agree about Clear Chat. It’s really missing in long conversations. Please create a separate thread in the Feature Requests category so other users can support it, and so the request doesn’t get lost among the limit discussions.

[DannyB (Danny)]

I actually use the Cursor API to figure out my Grok Bot usage vs my Cursor usage - instead of the Cursor billing page, since it doesn’t show Grok Bot token usage otherwise.

I use around 750M tokens per day on Grok Bot, compared to about 1.5B tokens per month on Cursor. Grok Bot is extremely token-intensive!

I have some staff about to start using it too, but now they can’t even buy the legacy Cursor subscription with a separate Grok Bot pool - so I’ve been pushed rather than jumped, to an alternative solution.

I am still exporting everything from Grok Bot (I have spent a full day exporting all bots’ memory and the last 30 days of their journal, but I have a bit left to do). I plan to setup Rakazo next week, and then I’ll report back here with my findings (especially about cost).

The feature request already exists:

Grok Bot: prune/compact an agent’s context without creating a new Bot

Describe the request We are rewriting the app around this. We need you to ship the primitives so a Bot is an object, not an unbounded thread. Problem Each Bot is one unbounded thread. Every turn reloads the full transcript (user messages, agent messages, tool dumps, screenshots, agent-to-agent pings). Obsolete traffic stays in the model context forever. There is no same-agent “new session,” no compact, and no way for the Bot to drop dead messages from what the model sees. The documented workar…

BTW, Rakazo already has a Clear Conversation button - which is a huge reason for Grok Bot’s token wastage.

And instead of Elon prioritising fixing the token wastage (like a normal person would do, and would be possible with open-source) he nuked the included usage and cried about its cost on X, alienating his customers.

The same company who is pushing up the price of RAM and GPUs for everyone is the same company who is wasting a ton of tokens, who is the same company who is crying about costs whilst not fixing the actual issue.

[Parag_Chhibber]

I as well have been moving everything from Grok Bot to Cursor Windows, Grok Build CLI, and I am evaluating Hermes Agent (it can also call Grok same API, just more resource efficiently then Grok Bot can). Also I have noticed that not only does Grok Bot give us double the burn rate in quota, the models internally selected to handle the response are lower quality then in October prior to the burn rate decrease for the same exact prompts. Other platforms like Cursor Windows or Grok Build CLI or Hermes Agent lets me specific a specific model, so I can avoid this issue.

[DannyB (Danny)]

@Parag_Chhibber Please do post your findings about Hermes Agent here. That was the only other one I was considering - but I plan to try Rakazo now instead. Thank you!

[DannyB (Danny)]

This is clearly a problem:

Less than 24 hours in to a 1 month Ultra subscription, and Grok Bot’s usage is already exhausted for the week… 12 hours of actual active work. What work, you might ask? Exporting the bots’ memories and other data. That’s it! And it couldn’t even complete that. I will have to finish the export in 1 week.

[Khaled_Betterleap (Khaled)]

Disclosure: I’m Khaled, founder of AQ (aq.dev), so weigh this accordingly.

Your comparison is the most useful thing I’ve read on this, so here’s where AQ fits your list and where it doesn’t.

Fits: persistent named bots, each person gets their own chat with a bot (private by default) and you can share a bot with selected teammates. Routines run on schedules, Linear labels, GitHub events, Gmail or webhooks, with a record of every run. When the answer is code, the bot starts a real work item: its own git branch and worktree, Claude Code, Codex, Grok CLI or another agent, and a PR you review and merge. The model bill is yours to choose: your own Claude or ChatGPT subscription (we don’t mark it up) or our models at listed prices, so you’re not tied to one vendor’s weekly pool. Machines can be ours or VMs in your own cloud account.

Doesn’t fit: no Windows desktop app (it runs in the browser, plus an iPhone app in beta)

On your exported memories: We support an import for Grok Bot exports (bots, instructions, routines, memories).