The OpenClaw Fork Ecosystem: 40,000 Forks Surveyed
·OpenClaw
openclawopen-sourceecosystem
TL;DR: OpenClaw exploded to 40,821 forks and 216K stars in three months, spawning everything from Chinese enterprise variants (1,606 stars) to complete Rust rewrites (16K+ stars) to 678KB Zig binaries. The ecosystem includes localization forks, security hardening projects, multi-tenant platforms, and trading bots that executed $1M+ in crypto trades—plus a controversy timeline featuring Anthropic cease-and-desist drama, database breaches, and supply chain attacks that got warnings from Microsoft and CrowdStrike.
OpenClaw Fork Ecosystem Survey
Overview
As of February 22, 2026:
- 40,821 forks on GitHub
- 216,598 stars
- Created November 24, 2025
- Creator Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI on February 14, 2026; project moving to foundation
Top Forks by Stars
| Fork | Stars | Description |
|---|---|---|
| jiulingyun/openclaw-cn | 1,606 | Chinese localization, Feishu integration, China network optimizations |
| DenchHQ/ironclaw | 403 | CRM Workflow Automation Skills |
| QVerisAI/QVerisBot | 156 | Professional personal AI assistant variant |
| AtomicBot-ai/atomicbot | 89 | "The Fastest Way to Run OpenClaw" |
| CrayBotAGI/OpenCray | 57 | Chinese with DingTalk, QQ, WeChat, domestic LLMs |
| sunkencity999/localclaw | 54 | Optimized for small, open-source models (Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM) |
| OpenBMB/EdgeClaw | 43 | Edge-Cloud Collaborative AI Assistant |
| kalachbeg/openclaw | 35 | Unmodified fork |
| BLUE-coconut/clawdbot | 34 | Unmodified fork |
| kitakitsune0x/zoidbergbot | 26 | "Flavour of moltbot" |
| shanselman/clawdbot | 17 | Fork by Scott Hanselman (Microsoft) |
| jomafilms/openclaw-multitenant | 13 | Multi-tenant platform: container isolation, encrypted vault, team sharing |
| maydhafer/openArab | 11 | Arabic localization |
| lutpd/openclaw-antigravity1 | 11 | Gemini Flash integration |
| titanicprime/moltbot-safe | 7 | Hardened version |
Fork Categories
Localization & International
- jiulingyun/openclaw-cn (1,606 stars) -- Full Chinese localization, Feishu/Lark, China network
- CrayBotAGI/OpenCray (57 stars) -- Chinese with DingTalk, QQ, WeChat, domestic LLMs
- MaoTouHU/OpenClawChinese -- Community Chinese localization with hourly upstream sync
- maydhafer/openArab (11 stars) -- Arabic localization
- Japanese localization project (openclaw.co.jp domain registered)
Security Hardening
- titanicprime/moltbot-safe (7 stars) -- Hardened version
- SaferClaw (AbraKDobrey) -- Hardened deployment wrapper (systemd, nginx, stripped skills)
Enterprise & Workflow
- DenchHQ/ironclaw (403 stars) -- CRM workflow automation, DuckDB, Chrome profile
- jomafilms/openclaw-multitenant (13 stars) -- Multi-tenant with per-user Docker containers, encrypted vault (AES-256-GCM, Argon2id), zero-knowledge architecture. Built by Annie Lundgren (film producer at Joma Films, Oregon -- NOT Joma Tech the YouTuber)
Local/Small Model
- sunkencity999/localclaw (54 stars) -- Optimized for 8K-32K context windows
- lutpd/openclaw-antigravity1 (11 stars) -- Gemini Flash
Infrastructure / Edge
- Cloudflare/moltworker -- Serverless on Cloudflare Workers, Sandbox SDK
- OpenBMB/EdgeClaw (43 stars) -- Edge-cloud hybrid
- AtomicBot-ai/atomicbot (89 stars) -- Fast deployment
Notable Developer Forks
- mitsuhiko/openclaw -- Armin Ronacher (Flask creator)
- shanselman/clawdbot -- Scott Hanselman (Microsoft)
Major Architectural Divergences (Not Forks -- Rebuilds)
| Project | Stars | Language | Approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| nearai/ironclaw | 2,798 | Rust | Complete rewrite, WASM sandboxes, host-boundary credential injection |
| zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw | 16,498 | Rust | Trait-driven, 8.8MB binary, <5MB RAM, 23 channels, 30+ providers |
| qwibitai/nanoclaw | 10,995 | TypeScript | 500 LOC, Anthropic Agents SDK, Apple Container/Docker isolation |
| sipeed/picoclaw | 17,591 | Go | Runs on $10 RISC-V hardware, <10MB RAM (NOT production-ready) |
| HKUDS/nanobot | 22,819 | Python | 4,000 LOC, Hong Kong University, auditable in one sitting |
| nullclaw/nullclaw | 1,550 | Zig | 678KB binary, 1MB RAM, <2ms boot |
| TinyAGI/tinyclaw | 2,339 | Shell | ~400 LOC, multi-agent collaboration |
| mosaxiv/clawlet | 669 | Go | Ultra-lightweight |
Trading & Finance Activity
- BankrBot/openclaw-skills -- Skill library for Polymarket, crypto, DeFi, portfolio management
- 13,000+ trades executed since Dec 2025, $1M+ total profits
- Users build research agents for token data, sentiment analysis
- Warning: Security researchers flagged numerous malicious forks with obfuscated fund-exfiltration code
Controversy Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Jan 27, 2026 | Anthropic cease-and-desist over "Moltbot" name |
| Jan 30 | Rebrand to "OpenClaw" -- gains 91K stars from drama |
| Jan 31 | Moltbook breach -- unsecured DB, 1.6M agents commandeerable |
| Jan-Feb | ClawHavoc -- 1,184 malicious skills on ClawHub (20% of marketplace) |
| Feb 14 | Steinberger joins OpenAI, project moves to foundation |
| Feb 17 | Cline CLI supply chain attack -- compromised npm token installs OpenClaw on ~4,000 dev machines |
| Feb 19 | Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Cisco, Kaspersky publish security warnings |
Clone/Download Statistics
| Metric | Count | Public? |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Stars | 216,598 | Yes |
| GitHub Forks | 40,825 | Yes |
| GitHub Clones | Unknown | No (collaborator-only API) |
| npm Weekly Downloads | 450,000-720,000 | Yes |
| Docker Hub Pulls | ~80,000+ | Yes |
| Publicly Exposed Instances | 21,000-135,000 | Yes (security scans) |
| Peak Website Traffic | 2M visitors/week | Shared by Steinberger |
| Estimated Total Installs | 600,000-800,000+ | OX Security estimate |
Fork Ratios
- Forks / Stars: 18.8% (typical for major projects)
- Forks / Estimated total users: ~5.8%
- Forks / npm cumulative downloads: ~1.0%