Looking for a Grok Bot Alternative

I use Grok Bot every day. It drafts my posts, watches my Slack, and has its own cloud computer. It's good. But it's a paid, managed service, and I wanted to answer one question for myself:

Can I run something similar on my own Mac, with my own models, and still keep a human yes before every write?

So I started awesome-bot, a small research repo. Not a ranking. Just notes from actually installing things. This post is the snapshot as of 1 Nov 2026.

1. What I actually need

My daily work is Slack, Gmail, GitHub, and Sentry. So the bar is:

• Read Slack threads, Gmail, GitHub repos/PRs, and Sentry incidents.
• Run on a schedule and remember useful context.
• Bring my own model (BYOK), ideally self-hosted and always on.
• Least-privilege OAuth, auditable tool calls, and approval before any write.

That last one is non-negotiable. An agent that can post to Slack or send email without asking is not an assistant, it's a liability.

2. The shortlist

Platform	How it runs	License	Status
Grok Bot	Managed	Paid service	Baseline
Rakazo	Hosted from $10/mo, desktop app	Apache-2.0	Tried, not selected
OpenMausBot	Desktop / VPS / Docker	Apache-2.0 core	Current trial
OpenBot (CopilotKit)	Self-host template	MIT	Watching
OpenHuman	Local core, hosted memory from $20/mo	GPL-3.0	Tried, Free plan dropped
OpenBot.run	Desktop, local-first	PolyForm Noncommercial	Tried, fails approval rule

3. Rakazo: nice pitch, broke on install

Hosted plan is $10/month if you bring your ChatGPT or Claude plan, or credits from $20/month. Bots, browser automation, routines, web + desktop + mobile. On paper it's very close to what I want.

In practice, desktop v0.3.5 "This computer" mode failed because the v0.3.5 container images return 404 (only edge exists). Connecting Twitter returned a raw Composio JSON error. I filed both: #2414 and #2415.

Keeping it on the list. Not installing it next.

4. OpenBot.run: works with my ChatGPT plan, but no brakes

This one surprised me. It picked up my existing Codex CLI login (ChatGPT plan) and the provider just became available. Supports a long list of agents: Codex, Claude Code, Gemini, Grok, OpenCode, Ollama...

But the agents run with danger-full-access and approvalPolicy: never. They can change files, run commands, and drive the browser without asking. Also the license is now PolyForm Noncommercial, so not for work use without a separate license.

Fun to try. Fails my approval rule.

5. OpenHuman: the "free" plan isn't really free

I ran the headless core plus web UI from release v0.64.20 (main didn't compile for me). The local setup is fine.

The catch is memory. On the Free account, the memory API returns MEMORY_PLAN_REQUIRED (403). Hosted memory starts at $20/month (Basic) or $200/month (Pro), and the page says payments and credits are non-refundable.

So the Free plan is out. If I come back, it's with a paid plan or not at all.

6. OpenMausBot: my current trial

OpenMausBot (formerly OpenGrokBot) is the one I'm still running. Apache-2.0 core, works with Codex/Claude/Grok CLIs, has schedules, webhooks, phone pairing, MCP, and approval cards for risky actions.

My setup:

• Harness on 127.0.0.1:8799, Vite UI on 5199, Electron off.

• One just up starts both and opens a Cloudflare tunnel to bot.itman.fyi.

• A remote browser must pair with a code before it can call the API.

  

One gotcha that cost me time: don't rewrite the Host header in the tunnel. If you do, the same-origin check fails with forbidden: cross-origin request.

Two things to watch: API keys sit in local config as plaintext (file mode 0600), and Slack/Gmail/GitHub go through Composio, which may cost extra. Sentry is still unverified.

7. OpenBot (CopilotKit): the one I'm watching

Different project, same name. It's an MIT template you clone and run. What I like: every tool call goes through a gateway that writes an audit row before the call. That's the right shape. I haven't put it through the same hands-on run yet.

8. Honest status

None of them has passed the real test yet. Slack, Gmail, GitHub, and Sentry were not fully connected in any run. Sentry support is unverified everywhere.

And a reminder to myself: an advertised integration is not proof of real OAuth scopes, two-way actions, or unattended runs.

The real test is one workflow:

1. Pull a Sentry issue and stack trace.
2. Find related GitHub commits and PRs, with citations.
3. Search Slack for the incident discussion.
4. Prepare a Gmail draft with a summary and links.
5. Wait for my yes before sending or posting anything.

9. The shape I want

Web / mobile UI
      |
Agent orchestrator --- Model gateway (BYOK / local LLM)
      |
Tool permission gateway
  |       |       |       |
Slack   Gmail   GitHub  Sentry
      |
Audit logs + approval + scheduler + state

Start read-only. Add writes later, behind approval.

Wrap up

For now Grok Bot stays my baseline, and OpenMausBot is the self-hosted one I keep running. The repo is open, so if you've tested one of these (or one I missed), PRs are welcome. Please bring a version, a date, and whether you tested it or just read about it.

Cheap agents are easy. Agents you can trust with your inbox are not.

Repo: https://github.com/jellydn/awesome-bot

#ITMan #AI #SelfHosted #OpenSource