Opinion: Neither praise nor criticism, I give OpenClaw a score of 65.

Title: Who’s Badmouthing LongLobster? Who’s Pumping Up LongLobster?

Author: 0xTodd

Source:

Repost: Mars Finance

I think there’s a very bad trend right now: either people desperately hype up LongLobster/OpenClaw to the heavens, or they outright belittle it as just a scammy info-push pyramid scheme.

Objectively speaking, I’d give LongLobster about 65 out of 100 points.

【LongLobster Actually Has Only Three Main Skills】

Basically, LongLobster is: external AI brain (Claude, GPT, MiniMax, etc.) + hands-on ability + super long prompt words.

So, first, don’t expect its IQ to make any big breakthroughs; its IQ hasn’t really improved. 99% of its IQ depends on what model you’re using.

Of course, I suspect some people hype it up mainly because they haven’t used Claude Opus 4.6 before. Now, through intermediaries like OpenRouter, they’re using Claude, and suddenly, they think it’s smarter.

Second is hands-on ability.

Previously, these AIs were just advisors, which nobody really liked. Now that they have hands-on capabilities, they’re kind of like employees. But honestly, they’re only at intern level, though they’re good at sweet-talking.

Third, prompts.

Because LongLobster comes with a set of super long default prompts. Honestly, most people’s prompt-writing skills can’t reach that level.

So after using it, people think: “Wow, LongLobster is amazing!”

And humans are naturally lazy; no one wants to craft such long prompts in traditional chats.

【Who’s Badmouthing LongLobster?】

But on the flip side, I can understand why some people dismiss LongLobster as worthless.

LongLobster only costs money, doesn’t make money.

Because, fundamentally, it’s not just about LongLobster. Whether you use GPT or Claude, you can’t make money just by using these AIs directly.

Forget the AI crypto trading competitions—everyone lost money, right?

PS: In the AI crypto trading contest, Doubao won—because Doubao didn’t even open an account.

They can’t make money in their normal form, and just wrapping them into LongLobster doesn’t change that, since their IQ remains the same.

Since AI can’t really make money, some people resort to methods like installation services and selling courses.

To make money selling courses and installation services, you have to hype LongLobster to the heavens—like how Mimi Meng did back in the day.

But if it’s only a 65-point thing, and you hype it up to 130 points, claiming it’s a Web 4.0 revolution, people will eventually realize: “Wow, it’s not even 130 points.” Naturally, this creates a huge sense of disappointment. The gap between hype and reality is big, and it’s easy to mess up.

【My Opinion】

If you ask me to rate it, I actually quite like the concept of LongLobster.

I think it has a persona, which I’ve mentioned before, and I think that’s very good.

Right now, I’m using Minimax M2.5, a domestic product with very low cost. For image recognition, I use Claude Haiku, so I’ve found a sweet spot.

Chatting with me, doing small tasks, not spending many tokens—it’s quite comfortable.

It’s also a bit like a “small horse crossing the river” problem. Some friends use Claude Opus 4.6, which costs 20 times more than mine. If what they produce turns out bad, it’s very frustrating.

I haven’t spent much money, and if what I generate is unusable and I throw it away, I don’t feel bad at all.

After all, Vibe Coding is like a new era slot machine. I play for 5 cents each time; you play for 1 dollar. Even if my hit rate is slightly lower, the price difference makes the experience totally different.

【Security Cannot Be a Game of Tactics】

Everyone says that OpenClaw surpassed React in just 3 months, after 13 years of effort and 240,000 stars, even leaving behind the 40-year-old Linux kernel.

But what they don’t realize is that OpenClaw’s bug count also surpasses Linux.

Check out the OpenClaw GitHub page—its star count is already in the top 10 worldwide. The bugs listed in issues have reached an astonishing 5,000+.

What does 5,000+ mean? It’s because GitHub only displays up to 5,000 issues.

That’s not the limit for OpenClaw; it’s the maximum display limit of GitHub.

In comparison, another open-source project with 200,000 stars, Vue, has only 359 issues.

So I think many ordinary people aren’t really suited to use open-source software. It’s better for those with some technical background and security awareness.

If you recklessly give OpenClaw a lot of permissions, it could be stolen, right?

(Actually, very few people get truly hacked, but such news spreads easily. Sometimes it’s “hundreds of thousands of users’ accounts exposed,” other times “credit cards being maxed out,” which can create negative impressions of LongLobster.)

At such times, you can’t expect open-source geek software to match the security standards of mature, verified apps like Gemini, Claude, Doubao, or Qianwen.

That’s a classic case of “Tian Ji’s horse racing.”

In software development, there’s a saying: “Anti-stupidity mechanism.” Traditional AI’s anti-stupidity measures are quite good, but LongLobster currently has a bunch of bugs. After all, it’s open-source software, even written with Vibe Coding.

Even Google, recently, there was news about a guy in Florida chatting with Gemini for a long time and eventually committing suicide. His family even sued Google.

Think about it—if a giant company with such high security standards can have issues, what about LongLobster?

【Summary: Should I Install LongLobster?】

So, in conclusion, if you ask me to objectively evaluate LongLobster, here’s what I think:

If you have some technical skills and enjoy tinkering, treat it as a research project.

Or, if you just have free time and want to get some free eggs from Shenzhen, that’s fine too.

I find it quite fun—playing with LongLobster as a leisure activity is fine.

But don’t expect to make big money or lead a Web 4.0 revolution. You’ll probably be disappointed.

If you’re busy and don’t have time to tinker, just use regular Claude, Gemini, or even Doubao or DeepSeek. This so-called revolution won’t leave you too far behind.

FOMO is just about fear of missing out. But I’ve used it for dozens of days, and I can tell you—you’re not missing out on much.