Searching for ClawdBot? You're in the Right Place
If you've been searching for ClawdBot or MoltBot and ended up here, that makes sense. Those were real names for the same project — what's now called OpenClaw.
Here's the quick version: OpenClaw went through several name changes early in its life before settling on the name it's now famous for. All of those old domains — clawdbot.com, moltbot.com — redirect to openclaw.ai today. Same project, same team, different era.
Why the Name Changes?
Early-stage open source projects often rename as they find their identity. What started as a focused experiment expanded into something broader — a self-hosted gateway that connects AI models to messaging platforms like Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Slack, and more. The name OpenClaw reflects that scope better than the earlier, more bot-specific names did.
The rename also coincided with explosive growth. OpenClaw crossed 244,000 GitHub stars in early 2026, gaining over 15,000 in a single day. The project went from a niche developer tool to one of the most-discussed open source releases of the year.
What OpenClaw Actually Does
Whether you knew it as ClawdBot, MoltBot, or ClawBot — the product has evolved significantly. Today, OpenClaw is a self-hosted AI agent framework built around a few core ideas:
Messaging-first. Your agent lives in Telegram, Discord, or WhatsApp — apps you're already using. You don't need to open a new dashboard or browser tab to interact with it.
Skills-based. Agents aren't just chatbots. They can search the web, scrape websites adaptively, execute code, generate images, monitor RSS feeds, run scheduled automations, and more. Each capability is a toggleable skill.
Model-agnostic. You pick the AI model — Claude, GPT, or Gemini. If you have a Claude Max subscription, you can connect it directly via a setup token and avoid per-token API billing entirely.
Self-hosted. Your data stays on your own machine or server. No SaaS company holds your conversation history.
The Setup Problem
The original vision of ClawdBot/MoltBot was personal — something a developer runs on their own machine. That vision hasn't changed, but the audience has grown. Today, a lot of people who want to use OpenClaw aren't developers and don't want to deal with Node.js, Docker, SSH keys, or VPS management.
That gap is exactly what Clawion fills. It's a managed hosting platform — you pick a template, connect your AI provider or Claude Max subscription, choose your channels, and your OpenClaw agent is live in 60 seconds. No terminal required.
Where Things Stand Now
The ClawdBot era is over, but what it became is more interesting. OpenClaw today supports 20+ messaging channels (including iMessage, Signal, and Slack beyond the core three), a growing ecosystem of community skills on ClawHub, multi-agent coordination, and an active Discord community of thousands of developers.
If you were a ClawdBot user wondering what happened to it — it grew up. The same instinct that made you search for it is exactly why OpenClaw is worth trying now.
Want to get started without the setup overhead? Follow the Telegram deployment guide or browse the available templates to find the right starting point.