Is OpenClaw Down?

Quickest ways to check the current status of openclaw.ai plus recent known issues and working alternatives if it's out.

Last editorial review: 2026-04-30

How to check right now

Step 1 -- Load the site
Open openclaw.ai→

The simplest check. If it loads and you can log in, the tool is up for you.

Step 2 -- Crowdsourced reports
DownDetector: OpenClaw→

User-reported outages aggregated across regions. Good signal for partial or regional outages.

Step 3 -- Live social
Search X for “OpenClawdown” →

Live tweets from other users. Fastest signal for a fresh outage -- often beats status pages by 10-20 minutes.

Step 4 -- Official status page
Find OpenClaw's status page →

Most vendors publish a status page at status.[domain] or on Statuspage.io. Google-search to find the current URL.

Known issues we've tracked

ANTHROPIC LOCKOUT (2026-04-04, enforced 2026-04-10): Anthropic excluded OpenClaw and other third-party agent harnesses from Claude Pro / Max flat-rate plans. Running OpenClaw against your existing Pro or Max subscription now bills as separate pay-as-you-go 'extra usage' rather than counting against the flat plan. Anthropic temporarily banned OpenClaw's creator from the platform on 2026-04-10 (cited 'subscriptions weren't built to handle the usage patterns' of harnesses that run continuous reasoning loops and tool chains). For OpenClaw users specifically: budget for direct API token costs going forward, NOT a flat $20-200/mo Claude subscription. The pay-as-you-go path still works -- but the economics are materially different. DeepSeek + OpenAI API are cheaper substitutes for non-Claude-dependent skills
2026-04-10•TechCrunch (techcrunch.com/2026/04/10/anthropic-temporarily-banned-openclaws-creator-from-accessing-claude/), The Next Web, PYMNTS
SECURITY CRISIS -- 9 CVEs disclosed over 4 days in March 2026, including one rated CVSS 9.9 (critical). Security researchers found 135,000+ OpenClaw instances publicly exposed on the internet across 82 countries, many with default credentials or unpatched versions. Mass developer migration to Hermes Agent reported across r/LocalLLaMA and Hacker News. If you are running OpenClaw, verify you are on the latest patch release and behind a firewall before doing anything else
2026-03•The New Stack, OpenClaw security advisories, Hacker News
Prompt injection via incoming messages or scraped web content can hijack the agent when it has credential access -- VirusTotal skill scanning partnership is one mitigation path but not a full solution. Pair with an allow-list of executable skills and never give the agent write-access credentials to production systems
2026-02•OpenClaw blog / Wikipedia
Breaking config changes across rapid version bumps -- SOUL.md schema has shifted multiple times since the rename, older templates may not load. Downstream of the security disclosures, update cadence is now slower/more careful which reduces but doesn't eliminate this
2026-03•GitHub Issues

Issues here are sourced from our editorial sweeps, not real-time telemetry. Newer issues may exist.

What to use if OpenClaw is down

Top AIToolTier-ranked alternatives in the same category, ordered by our overall score.

A

Hermes Agent

8.4

Nous Research's self-improving autonomous agent -- persistent memory, auto-generated skills, five sandbox backends. v0.12.0 'Curator Release' (2026-04-30) adds Autonomous Curator background agent that prunes + consolidates skills on a 7-day cycle, plus Microsoft Teams + Tencent Yuanbao platforms

A

Perplexity Computer

8.4

Perplexity's general-purpose digital worker -- operates real software like you do, runs for hours or months, routes sub-tasks to Opus, Gemini, GPT-5.2, Grok, and Veo 3.1

A

Perplexity Comet

8.4

Perplexity's agentic AI browser -- FREE on all platforms as of 2026-03-18 (previously $200/mo Max-only). iOS, Android, Windows, Mac. Browses the web, executes multi-step tasks, and summarizes pages in-line. Comet Plus ($5/mo) adds premium publisher content

A

Wingman (Emergent)

8.1

Emergent's messaging-first personal AI agent -- launched 2026-04-15 from the India vibe-coding startup ($70M raise, $300M valuation). Positioned as an OpenClaw alternative with safer defaults

B

Manus AI

7.9

Hosted autonomous AI agent you talk to through Telegram, WhatsApp, and Slack -- the 'no DevOps' alternative to OpenClaw and Hermes. Manus Cloud Computer (2026-04-30) adds 24/7 persistent VMs so agents keep running between sessions

About OpenClaw

Tier B (7.6/10). Open-source personal AI agent you talk to through Signal, Telegram, Discord, or WhatsApp. WARNING: March 2026 disclosed 9 CVEs (including CVSS 9.9) with 135,000+ exposed public instances -- verify hardening before running anywhere sensitive

Read the full OpenClawreview →