OpenClaw in the cloud is even more of a non-starter.

"Cloud OpenClaw Is the Biggest Scam of the 21st Century"

Whether OpenClaw is worse than Teacher Luo Yihang's dog remains up for debate, but cloud OpenClaw is definitely a worthless piece of trash.

Over the past couple of days I've tried MiniMax, Kimi, and Tencent Cloud's cloud OpenClaw.

First, I have to admit: I got lazy. I saw domestic LLM companies promising one-click OpenClaw deployment and just paid up without thinking for myself.

Big mistake.

I started with MaxClaw. Paid my money, got straight to the chat window. After connecting it to Lark, I immediately asked MaxClaw if it could log into my Xiaohongshu account.

It said theoretically yes, but it currently didn't have browser control capabilities for me. I'd need to install the OpenClaw client on my computer and pair it before it could execute commands or run scripts.

Wait, so we're back to installing local OpenClaw? Then what did I pay you for?

I'd been wondering why it suggested connecting to Lark the moment I logged in. Now I got it — integrating with Lark and DingTalk is the entire essence of cloud lobster. Beyond that and a bunch of built-in skills, there's nothing.

Maybe I was using it wrong? I rushed to read all the case studies hyping this thing. Turns out they were all stuff like "generate an investment report," "build a news scraper," or "grab X's trending news from the past week."

Bro, can't you just do all that with the base model? This is performative OpenClaw usage.

I still hadn't given up. Maybe the 39-yuan MaxClaw was just too cheap. So I bought the 199-yuan Kimi Claw next door. Also trash.

I tried getting it to call Kimi Code. It said there was no official Kimi Code, but it could build one for me.

I laughed out of sheer frustration. I had to screenshot my VS Code for it. Also, Kimi Claw can't call Kimi's agent cluster either. Guess the good stuff isn't ready for public consumption.

Since I knew automatic login was impossible, I just logged into Xiaohongshu myself, sent the webpage link to Kimi Claw, and asked it to find me a one-bedroom apartment in Beijing. It responded that Xiaohongshu had detected an automated browser environment and blocked it 😭

It could only compile public information for me — back to chatbot logic.

Understandable, I guess. The domestic environment is walled off. Even with Lark integration, commanding Kimi Claw to build an ecosystem inside Lark gets blocked at every turn.

Essentially these cloud OpenClaw products are all bare models plus lobster architecture. Most responses aren't fine-tuned or designed. For most general questions, you're probably better off asking a chatbot directly. Completely unsuitable for novice users. So stop bullying us iron-rank noobs 😭

Then I tried Tencent Cloud's OpenClaw deployment service on a whim. Bought a cloud server, configured the Kimi API myself, set up a bot on the QQ developer platform, named it QQ Xiaobing, pretending QQ Xiaobing had been resurrected.

Result? This QQ Xiaobing OpenClaw was laggy as hell, couldn't understand voice messages, and couldn't recognize images. IQ on par with the official QQ Xiaobing.

Later QQ Xiaobing OpenClaw said it could recognize images. I sent a meme. First it said it was a QQ chat screenshot. Then it said it was my conversation with AI assistant Paibao. Anyone know if Paibao is Yuanbao?

I'm truly out of options. Folks, this one really needs a warning label. Cloud providers didn't optimize anything. Tencent's going all-in on Yuanbao, huh? Wait until the DAU from those red packets drops off, then we'll see.

Later I discovered the inaccurate image recognition might be a Kimi API issue, because we saw similar problems with Kimi Claw: I sent it a Bilibili video, it said I was looking at Espressif stock. I sent it a Fat Cat photo, it said it was Kobe Bryant 🤣

What can I say, Mamba out 😭

One more thing: OpenClaw is a developer-facing product. All services, including speech-to-text, require configuring relevant APIs separately.

Cloud OpenClaw has lowered the barrier somewhat, but only by skipping the OpenClaw deployment itself. Most APIs still need manual configuration.

Ordinary users like me, drawn in by the OpenClaw hype, can't wrap our heads around this. I've already deployed a cloud server, connected it to QQ, and yet voice and images don't work. It can only write simple reports for me. Completely wasted my time that could've been spent playing Delta Force.

Xianyu said yesterday that cloud lobster products are essentially upgraded chatbots. I think they're worse than chatbots, because Claude can at least give me accurate implementation paths.

To make AI actually do complex work — not just write research reports or build personal websites — you still need Claude Code and Codex for now. And all of that requires a local environment.

You could say cloud OpenClaw without a local environment is worthless trash. Its only purpose is letting you pretend to be a middle manager barking orders at AI in Lark, enjoying the feeling of being a boss.

From our testing, the best cloud OpenClaw right now is Manus Agents.

Our Singapore friends urgently launched a lobster-like chat assistant product during Chinese New Year, configurable for Telegram with one click. Guess you still gotta hustle even after making it 💪

Though the credits burn fast too.

Because Manus was already integrated with Google and other overseas service ecosystems, you can send voice messages in the chat window and have it complete everything the Manus website can do.

Like activating the agent cluster Wide Research, running a dozen tasks in parallel, then emailing the report or uploading to GitHub — though my question is, couldn't you just do all this in Manus anyway?

(Xianyu's addendum: I object to this. Sending voice messages on WeChat to boss around your employee, versus standing at their desk hand-holding them through debugging — are these the same thing?)

But look on the bright side: Chinese LLM companies are finally getting the American treatment. There's finally somewhere for the deal-seeking masses to burn through tokens in bulk, giving the Big Three the confidence to flex on the OpenRouter leaderboard.

Dear Kimi has really made it big, rushing out PR that revenue in the past ~20 days exceeded all of last year. Of course this doesn't prove Kimi Claw is good — it just proves they didn't make much from C端 last year.

And our good friend Fat Cat — MiniMax, a publicly listed company — its CEO actually said on an earnings call that February ARR exceeded $150 million, so February revenue is $150M divided by 12?

How did Fat Cat catch startup company bad habits too 😭

Folks, cloud OpenClaw is the biggest scam of the 21st century. The worst part is packaging a developer-facing product as click-and-play for normies. What everyone gets with one click is a budget OpenClaw with no local environment, still needing APIs configured one by one.

Claude Code blows all of this away. With that money, why not hire a personal trainer and lose some weight? Living long matters most in the AI era.

Finally, my sincere advice to everyone: if you truly have AI addiction, can't live without OpenClaw, and are too lazy to deploy it yourself, then go on Xiaohongshu and pay 400 yuan for someone to come to your door. I saw people in Beijing offering on-site OpenClaw deployment with two hours of free cleaning. Not sure if OpenClaw is useful, but at least your home will be cleaner.

This creator makes a good point — you should clean while downloading the installer, making use of idle time.

Finally, this article is dedicated to the money I spent on MaxClaw, KimiClaw, and Tencent Cloud 😭

(Cover image generated by ChatGPT, purely human-written)

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