Grok Bot alternatives after the usage-limit cuts

The closest Grok Bot alternative is Rakazo: several bots, each with a job and its own computer, but open source and running on the model you choose. If you want a free agent on your own server, use Hermes Agent or OpenClaw. If you want someone else to run it, Perplexity Teammates is the nearest hosted match and Manus the cheapest to try.

Disclosure: Rakazo is made by the company that runs this site. It is ranked by the same criteria as the rest, and its downsides are listed below.

A note on names: before August 2026, “Grok bot” usually meant the @grok account people tag under posts on X. That is the Grok chatbot. This page is about Grok Bot, SpaceXSI’s separate app of always-on agents.

Why people look for Grok Bot alternatives

Grok Bot launched in beta in August. The idea is strong: named Bots with a job, working on a persistent cloud computer, signing in to your tools and running routines while you’re away. It meets all five of our assistant criteria. The complaints are about cost, limits and control.

• Weekly limits that ran out early. Over Halloween weekend, users found their weekly allowance at 100% with days to go. On November 1, Elon Musk replied that “the cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue”, without saying how the limits had changed. Users called it an “indirect rug pull”.
• A meter you can’t trust. A long Cursor forum thread reports the weekly usage meter jumping between 77% and 100% in real time. Because the pool is shared with Grok chat and Cursor, a heavy coding week can also starve your Bots.
• No free plan and no standalone price. The cheapest way in is the $30 Premium tier of The X Subscription.
• No model choice. Grok Bot picks the model for each task and doesn’t show which one it used.
• One shared computer. All Bots on an account share one computer, files and logins, and the docs say not to use separate Bots as a security boundary.

How we ranked them

Every tool here fixes at least one of those complaints: you choose the model, the price is predictable, or there is a free way in. Among those, higher-rated tools come first. Our rating is in the table above; it weighs the checklist (acts in your accounts, works while you’re away, messages you first, lives in your chat apps, runs several bots) along with setup effort, price and availability. Within the same rating, the closer match to Grok Bot’s team of named Bots comes first. Tools that fix none of the complaints, such as dots, which needs ChatGPT Pro from $100 a month and doesn’t let you choose the model, are left out.

1. Rakazo: same idea, your model, a computer per bot

Rakazo works the way Grok Bot does: you create bots, give each a job, and each gets memory, routines and a computer with a browser, terminal and desktop. Bots run on a schedule, a webhook or a GitHub event, hand work to each other, and ask for approval on the actions you choose. Like Grok Bot, it does everything on our checklist.

The differences line up with the complaints. You pick the model per bot: sign in with a Claude or ChatGPT subscription, use an API key (including Grok’s), or run local models. Each bot gets its own sandboxed computer instead of sharing one. The code is Apache-2.0 and self-hosting is free; the hosted plan starts at $15 a month with 25 computer hours, so the limit is a number you can see. It ranks first because it is the only one here with a hosted plan that gives every bot a computer.

What you give up: polish. Rakazo is in beta with frequent releases, and on hosted plans you pay your model provider separately unless you buy Rakazo credits. Telegram, WhatsApp and iMessage only work when self-hosted. Expect more setup than Grok Bot’s apps.

2. Hermes Agent: free, self-hosted, and learns as it goes

Hermes Agent, from Nous Research, is an MIT-licensed agent that writes and refines its own skills after complex tasks and keeps a memory of you across sessions. You can run several agents as separate profiles, each with its own model, memory and skills, which is the closest open-source match to Grok Bot’s team of named Bots. It talks to you on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and more than 20 other platforms.

You bring any model, or pay $20 a month for Nous Portal, which bundles models, hosted tools such as web search, and one cloud agent, so the monthly cost is fixed.

What you give up: convenience. Setup expects the command line and your own server, there is no native mobile app, and only one cloud agent comes with the Portal plan, so a team of agents still means running your own machine.

3. OpenClaw: the biggest open-source ecosystem

OpenClaw is the open-source agent most Grok Bot users will have heard of. It is free with no paid tier, runs on your own computer, takes orders from 29 chat channels and works with 64 model and media providers or local models. Your state, memory and credentials stay on your machine.

What you give up: safety by default and hosting. Sandboxing is off by default, so the agent can act directly on your machine, and third-party skills have included malicious ones. There is no hosted version, so keeping it working while you’re away means leaving a machine on. Model costs are yours, and expensive models have produced $100-a-day bills.

4. Perplexity Teammates: the closest hosted match

Perplexity Teammates, announced November 4, are the hosted product most like Grok Bot. You create several teammates with a name, role and model; each runs on its own isolated computer and browser, watches Slack, GitHub, Linear or Gmail, and messages you when it needs input. Unlike Grok Bot, you choose the model per teammate or task, and each teammate is separated from the others.

What you give up: money and maturity. It is a research preview for Perplexity Max at $200 a month, web only for now, and usage draws on credits with no published cost per task, so it doesn’t fix the unpredictable-meter problem. It misses the chat-app point on our checklist because its only channel is the web; in Slack, GitHub and Linear you tag teammates as an app.

5. Manus: free plan, built around deliverables

Manus plans and finishes a task in its own environment and hands you a result: a research report, a website, a slide deck, a video. Automations start from a schedule or an event in Gmail, Slack or Notion, and you can chat with it in Slack and Telegram. There is a free plan, which Grok Bot lacks.

What you give up: Manus is built around projects rather than named Bots with ongoing roles. Credits are charged by task complexity and failed runs still use them, a budgeting headache much like Grok Bot’s pool.

6. Lindy: an assistant for work, with model choice

Lindy is an executive assistant for small teams: it triages email, schedules meetings, preps you for calls and sends daily briefs, reachable by iMessage, SMS, Slack, its own phone number or the web. You choose the model per task, and Lindy says it never trains on your data.

What you give up: the team of Bots. Lindy is one shared assistant per team, paid seats start at $49.99 per user a month, and credits range from 2 for a simple ask to 2,500 for a big build, so predicting cost is still hard.

Which one should you pick?

• You want Grok Bot’s setup with your own model and a computer per bot: Rakazo.
• You want free, self-hosted agents that learn and can run as a team: Hermes Agent.
• You want the largest open-source ecosystem and don’t mind the command line: OpenClaw.
• You want hosted agents with model choice and already pay for Perplexity Max: Perplexity Teammates.
• Your work ends in a deliverable and you want a free plan: Manus.
• You mostly need inbox, calendar and meeting help: Lindy.

For more on how Grok Bot works, see what Grok Bot is.