New Delhi: A small weekend hack has quietly turned into one of the fastest growing open source AI agent projects on the internet. The tool once called Clawdbot, then briefly known as Moltbot, has now settled on a new identity. Its creator, Peter Steinberger, has officially renamed the project to OpenClaw.
The announcement comes after a period of rapid growth. Steinberger says the project has crossed 100,000 GitHub stars and pulled in around 2 million visitors in a single week. Alongside the new name, the team is also shipping fresh features, more model support, and security updates.
The lobster has molted into its final form 🦞
Clawd → Moltbot → OpenClaw
100k+ GitHub stars. 2M visitors in a week.
And finally, a name that’ll stick.Your assistant. Your machine. Your rules.https://t.co/d39LXKRE9h
— OpenClaw🦞 (@openclaw) January 30, 2026
From Clawdbot to Moltbot to OpenClaw
Steinberger shared that the project has gone through multiple naming rounds since November 2025.
“Clawd was born in November 2025, a playful pun on ‘Claude’ with a claw. It felt perfect until Anthropic’s legal team politely asked us to reconsider,” he wrote.
The next name, Moltbot, came from a late night community brainstorm.
“Moltbot came next, chosen in a chaotic 5am Discord brainstorm with the community. Molting represents growth, lobsters shed their shells to become something bigger. It was meaningful, but it never quite rolled off the tongue.”
Now, the team says OpenClaw is the final stop.
“OpenClaw is where we land. And this time, we did our homework, trademark searches came back clear, domains have been purchased, migration code has been written.”
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What OpenClaw is built to do
OpenClaw is positioned as an open agent platform that runs on a user’s own machine and works inside popular chat apps.
According to Steinberger, “OpenClaw is an open agent platform that runs on your machine and works from the chat apps you already use. WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Teams, wherever you are, your AI assistant follows.”
He sums up the idea in one line. “Your assistant. Your machine. Your rules.”
Unlike cloud based assistants, OpenClaw is designed to run on hardware chosen by the user, such as a laptop, homelab, or VPS. Users bring their own models, keys, and infrastructure.
Read More: Clawdbot > Moltbot > OpenClaw explained: what it is, what it does, and why everyone is talking about it
What’s new with the OpenClaw release
Along with the rebrand, the project is adding several updates:
- New plugins for Twitch and Google Chat
- Support for KIMI K2.5 and Xiaomi MiMo-V2-Flash models
- Web chat with image sending
- 34 security related commits
Steinberger also thanked security researchers who helped review the code. “We’ve released machine-checkable security models this week and are continuing to work on additional security improvements,” he said, while noting that prompt injection remains an industry wide problem.
The road ahead
Security and reliability sit at the top of the project’s priorities. Steinberger says the project has grown beyond what one person can handle and new maintainers are being added. He is also exploring ways to pay maintainers, possibly full time.
The closing line of his post reflects how far the project has come. “The lobster has molted into its final form. Welcome to OpenClaw.”