OpenClaw is a powerful open-source personal agent that works with many model providers. But run yourself, it needs a machine that stays on, updates you apply and test, and someone on the team who is comfortable in a terminal.
Hivra is the managed alternative, in two ways. It can run OpenClaw itself for you on paid plans, or you can move to Hermes, which Hivra also hosts. Either way we handle the server, updates, monitoring, and restarts. Hivra is not affiliated with the OpenClaw project.
What OpenClaw is and who uses it
OpenClaw is an open-source (MIT) personal agent created by Peter Steinberger and its community, with hundreds of thousands of GitHub stars. It runs a gateway on your laptop or a server, works with hosted and local model providers, and you reach it from messaging apps such as Telegram, Discord, Slack and WhatsApp. It has an active community building skills for it.
The typical OpenClaw user: a technical developer comfortable in a terminal, willing to invest setup time in exchange for control and avoiding subscription fees. The framework is well-built and well-documented. The community is active and productive.
The operational cost: someone has to keep the machine it runs on awake, apply updates and test them for regressions, and back up its state. OpenClaw has its own memory and a built-in scheduler, but both only work while that machine is running.
The core trade OpenClaw users are making
OpenClaw users usually know the trade they are making: they get maximum control and zero subscription fees beyond API costs, in exchange for handling all operations themselves. That trade makes sense for developers who genuinely value the control and have the time.
The trade breaks down in a few common situations: when the setup time starts competing with the work the agent is supposed to be enabling, when the developer wants the agent available 24/7 without keeping their machine on, or when they want to run multiple agent profiles without managing separate instances.
Hivra is built for exactly these situations. You bring your API key, the same one you were using with OpenClaw, and get a managed cloud environment that runs the agent for you, whether that agent is OpenClaw or Hermes.
What migrates and what does not
Hivra does not have a one-click OpenClaw import, so moving is a manual step. If you keep OpenClaw, launch it on Hivra and copy your configuration across yourself. If you move to Hermes, Hermes has its own migration command, `hermes claw migrate`. It reads your OpenClaw setup and imports your persona (SOUL.md), memory, skills, model settings and messaging tokens; API keys come across only if you ask for them. Run it with `--dry-run` first to preview what will change.
Some things do not come across. Hermes' migration guide lists cron jobs, plugins, webhooks and channel bindings as archived for you to set up again by hand, and WhatsApp needs pairing again. Browser session history and stored cookies for logged-in sites are machine-local by nature. On Hivra, you re-authenticate the first time the agent needs access to a site, and the session is then stored on the cloud server for subsequent runs.
Your Anthropic API key from your OpenClaw setup works identically on Hivra. You are not changing providers or re-configuring model access. You are moving the execution environment from your machine to persistent cloud infrastructure.
Capabilities comparison
Browser automation: both can drive a browser. On Hivra the browser runs on the agent's cloud computer, with a persistent Chromium by default and Browserbase or Browser Use cloud if you add a key. Self-hosted OpenClaw browses from whatever machine it runs on.
Memory: both keep long-term memory in files (OpenClaw and Hermes both use a MEMORY.md). Hermes also keeps USER.md for your profile and Skill Documents in the agentskills.io format for procedural memory. On Hivra, that memory lives on a server that stays on instead of on your laptop.
Scheduling: both have a built-in scheduler. Scheduled jobs only run while the machine is on, which is the part Hivra takes care of.
Multiple agents: Hivra lets you run more than one agent from one account on paid plans, each keeping its own memory and tools, and they do not all have to be the same kind of agent.
Model support: both work with many providers. With Hermes on Hivra you bring your own key for Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenRouter, with no markup.
What's included
- OpenClaw itself available on paid plans
- Or move to Hermes with its own `hermes claw migrate` command (a manual step)
- Persistent cloud hosting instead of a local process
- Dashboard, monitoring, and restart management included
- Hermes updates tested and applied for you
- Run more than one agent from one account
Common questions
How different is Hivra from OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is an open-source agent you normally run yourself. Hivra is a managed place to run agents, and OpenClaw is one of them, alongside Hermes, Claude Code, Codex and others. Hivra takes care of the server, restarts, and updates so OpenClaw keeps running when your laptop is closed.
Can I migrate my existing OpenClaw setup to Hivra?
Yes, but it is a manual step: Hivra has no one-click import. To keep OpenClaw, launch it on Hivra and copy your configuration across. To move to Hermes, run Hermes' own `hermes claw migrate` command, which imports your persona, memory, skills, and settings.
Do I lose anything by switching from OpenClaw to Hivra?
You gain managed hosting and an agent that stays on without your laptop. The main trade is that you are no longer running locally, which means your API key is stored on a server rather than your machine. Local browser sessions and stored credentials do not migrate, and if you move to Hermes, cron jobs and plugins need setting up again.
I built custom tools for OpenClaw. Will they work on Hivra?
If you run OpenClaw on Hivra, your OpenClaw skills stay OpenClaw skills. If you move to Hermes, `hermes claw migrate` brings skills across, but OpenClaw plugins do not migrate. Tools that depend on local machine resources (local files, running processes on your machine) will need to be adapted to work on a cloud server.