Last week, someone in our Discord asked: “Should I use OpenClaw, Zapier, or Make for my workflow?” My answer was all three, for different things. The question isn’t which one is best — it’s which one is right for each type of automation.
I’ve used all three extensively, and the choice is much simpler than people
We’re currently in the “trough of disillusionment” phase of the AI agent hype cycle, and I think that’s actually great news.
A year ago, every AI company was pitching fully autonomous agents that would replace entire departments. “Set a goal and walk away — the agent handles everything.” Demo videos showed agents seamlessly navigating complex workflows,
I gave my OpenClaw agent access to my production database on day one. Full read-write access. No restrictions. Because I was in a hurry and “I’ll lock it down later.”
Three weeks later, an improperly formatted prompt caused the agent to run an UPDATE query without a WHERE clause. On production. On a Friday.
I got lucky
Six months ago, our five-person team started using OpenClaw. I was the only one who was excited about it. Everyone else was somewhere between skeptical and annoyed that I was adding another tool to their already crowded toolkit.
Today, all five of us use it daily, and the junior developer recently told me it’s “the only
Why Most Teams Don’t Need AutoGPT — And What to Use Instead
AutoGPT was the first autonomous AI agent to go viral, but after 6 months of real-world use, most teams are migrating to more practical alternatives. Having personally migrated from AutoGPT to OpenClaw — and helped 12 other teams do the same — here’s
I’ve installed 47 OpenClaw skills over the past eight months. I actively use 12 of them. The other 35 range from “occasionally useful” to “what was I thinking?” Here’s what’s actually worth installing — and what sounds cool but wastes your time.
The 12 Worth Installing
1. GitHub integration. This is the first skill I install
I keep everything in Notion. Meeting notes, project trackers, reading lists, client databases, random ideas at 2 AM — it all goes into Notion. The problem was that Notion is great for storing information but terrible at doing anything with it. It just sits there, beautifully organized but fundamentally passive.
Then I connected it to OpenClaw,
At one point, I was paying for ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Gemini Advanced, and Perplexity Pro simultaneously. Four AI subscriptions. $80/month. And I was spending more time deciding which AI to use for each task than I was spending on the actual tasks.
“Should I use Claude for this email? No wait, GPT-4o is better at
After running OpenClaw for eight months, I’ve noticed the same questions coming up over and over — from colleagues, Discord communities, and people who email me after reading my other posts. Rather than answering them one at a time, I’m dumping everything here.
These are real questions from real people, with answers based on actual experience
Last month I onboarded four new freelance clients in one week. Two years ago, that same week would have destroyed me. Each client means a welcome email, a questionnaire, a contract, a project brief, calendar scheduling, folder setup, and a kickoff call agenda. Multiply that by four and you’ve got a full-time job that isn’t