· 9 min read · Omkar Satpute and Milind Soni
Hark Pro vs MausBot: Adcock’s assistant vs the open team
Hark Pro, from Brett Adcock’s Hark Labs, is one assistant in Hark’s cloud on web, iOS and Android. MausBot is the open source alternative on your own machine.
Hark Pro is one assistant in Hark’s cloud; MausBot is a team of bots on your machine. Hark Pro, launched on October 6, 2026 by Brett Adcock’s Hark Labs, runs on the web, iOS and Android, remembers you, and does errands in a virtual computer in Hark’s cloud with Hark’s own Handoff model. It is free with a usage cap and $20 or $100 a month for more, closed, and has no desktop app, no model choice and no second agent. MausBot is the open source alternative: named bots on any model, running on your own computer behind an approval card, free under Apache 2.0, with a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu and phone apps.
What is Hark Pro?
Hark is the third company from Brett Adcock, after Archer Aviation and Figure AI. He started it in late 2025 with $100 million of his own money, and in May 2026 it raised a $700 million Series A at a $6 billion valuation from Parkway, NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm and Salesforce before it had a product. Its head of design is Abidur Chowdhury, who introduced the iPhone Air for Apple. On October 6, 2026 it launched Hark Pro, with a tweet seen 1.46 million times, a TechCrunch piece about its privacy stance, and a Hacker News thread with three points. The launch post is specific about what it is not: “Not a chatbot, not a personal assistant, not an AI agent, not a cartoon character.” The help page is specific about what it is:
- One assistant in “a single, persistent chat thread. No juggling ‘agents,’ ‘tokens,’ or other technical oddities required.”
- On the web, iOS and Android, with a Slack app. No desktop app, no API.
- A computer in Hark’s cloud for every request, with a browser, files and a terminal, driven by Handoff, Hark’s own computer-use model, which Hark says tops the Online-Mind2Web leaderboard. Up to six browsers at once.
- Memory you can ask it to forget, Action Buttons suggested from your inbox, Panels built from a prompt over services like Strava and Spotify, Scheduled Tasks, and Specialties that memorise a workflow.
- A “Secured by Hark” vault where passwords and cards are tokenized and detokenized only on the page that needs them.
- Consent by default: “Hark checks in with you before doing something that requires your approval,” with a cancel button.
- Pricing: free with a cap and every feature; Pro² at $20 a month for twice the usage; Pro³ at $100 for ten times; credit top-ups. No numbers for what a cap is.
- Hardware in 2027, with AT&T connectivity.
Two things in the small print are worth reading before you rely on it. The Terms let you give Hark “standing permission to complete a category of Transactions without asking you first”, after which each purchase inside that category is authorised; and they say Hark may store “login credentials, session cookies, authentication tokens, and payment card details for third-party sites”. The privacy policy says Hark does not train on your inputs, outputs or memory, with no opt-out needed, and lists browsing history, searches and task logs among what it keeps. A Gizmodo hands-on found a DoorDash order “took several minutes” and that “manual ordering would have been faster for this simple task”, which is the normal state of computer-use agents in 2026, Hark’s included.
Hark Pro vs MausBot
| Hark Pro | MausBot | |
|---|---|---|
| Launched | October 6, 2026, on web, iOS and Android | August 2026 |
| Made by | Hark Labs, San Jose; founder Brett Adcock of Figure AI and Archer; a $700 million Series A at $6 billion; about 70 people | Supamaus Software, an independent open-source project |
| What it calls itself | “The operating system for your life.” “Not a chatbot, not a personal assistant, not an AI agent.” | A team of AI bots in a chat app |
| Price | Free with a usage cap, all features included; Pro² $20 a month for 2× usage; Pro³ $100 for 10×; credit top-ups; no published usage numbers | Free. Model usage on the Claude, ChatGPT or Grok account you already have; Cloud plans from $29 a month |
| Shape | One assistant in one persistent thread; Home with Action Buttons and Panels, Chat, Projects | Named bots in a sidebar, each with its own conversation; group rooms |
| Agents | One. “No juggling ‘agents’.” | As many as you like, in rooms, with hand-offs |
| Models | Hark’s own Handoff for computer use, plus vetted third-party models with zero retention; no picker, no keys, no plan sign-in, no local models | Claude, Codex, Grok and other CLIs, chosen per bot, on your existing logins |
| Its computer | A virtual computer in Hark’s cloud per request, with a browser, files and a terminal; up to six browsers at once | Your own machine; or a cloud desktop per bot |
| Controls your own computer | No | Yes, through the CLIs on your machine, behind an approval card |
| Before it acts | Consent by default and a cancel button; standing permissions let a category of purchases run without asking | Allow / Deny cards for shell commands and file edits, by default |
| Credentials | A tokenized vault; passwords and cards are detokenized only on the target page | Bots sign into your apps over OAuth; MausBot holds no passwords |
| Where your data lives | Hark’s servers: memory, chats, task logs, browsing history, credentials; not used for training, per the privacy policy | ~/.openmausbot on your disk; nothing leaves unless you send it |
| Integrations | Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, MCP, and any site through the browser; no published count | 500+ apps over Composio; MCP |
| Proactive | Action Buttons from your inbox, Panels, Scheduled Tasks, Specialties | Routines |
| Voice | Input only; no calls yet | In-app calls on iOS and Android |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android; a Slack app; SMS notifications; no desktop app, no API | macOS, Windows, Ubuntu; iOS and Android companions |
| Open source | No; the Terms forbid reverse engineering; no self-hosting | Apache 2.0, app and harness, on GitHub |
| Age | 18 and over | No age gate in the app |
What MausBot is, in the same terms
MausBot is the shape Hark explicitly rejects: a team. It is a chat app where every contact is a bot, each on the claude, codex or grok CLI installed on your own machine with the login you already have, so a research bot on Claude and a coding bot on Codex can share a room and hand work to each other. Its computer is yours, which means it can edit the files on your disk and run commands in your terminal, and every one of those becomes an Allow / Deny card before it runs, by default. When you want a bot to keep working with the laptop closed, it gets a cloud desktop of its own on a Cloud plan from $29 a month. Data stays in ~/.openmausbot; the harness listens on 127.0.0.1 only; there is no account for the free app and nothing is sent to us. It installs from a signed DMG, EXE or deb, the iOS and Android apps are in the stores with Live calls, and the code is on GitHub under Apache 2.0, app and harness.
What Hark Pro still does better
- A purpose-trained computer-use model with a cloud computer that keeps your logins, so a web errand runs while your phone is in your pocket and your laptop is off, with no plan to buy. MausBot’s laptop-closed case is a paid Cloud plan.
- Zero setup: sign in with Google or Apple, no CLI, no keys, every feature free. MausBot asks you to sign in with the Claude, Codex or Grok CLI first.
- The proactive layer: Action Buttons it suggests from your inbox, Panels you build with a sentence, Specialties that learn a workflow. MausBot’s routines are a schedule you write.
- A tokenized vault for cards and passwords with a consent flow and a watchable browser. MausBot deliberately holds no passwords and uses OAuth, which is safer and less convenient.
- $700 million, NVIDIA compute and a design lead from Apple.
The verdict
Hark Pro is the most polished single-assistant launch of the autumn, and single is the point: one thread, one brain Hark picks for you, one computer in Hark’s cloud, one company holding your memory, your browsing history and your card. If you want an assistant that runs errands on the web and you are happy to rent it, it is a good one, with the caveat that it cannot touch the computer in front of you and that nobody outside Hark can read how it decides. If you want more than one agent, on the model you choose, working on your own files and apps, asking before every command, and you want to be able to read the code and own the data, then of the two MausBot is the only one that offers any of it, and on the table above it is the better app for that person. It is also the only one with a desktop app at all.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Hark Pro?
- Hark Pro is the app from Hark Labs, the company Brett Adcock founded in late 2025 after Figure AI and Archer Aviation. It launched on October 6, 2026 on the web, iOS and Android as one assistant that remembers you, suggests actions from your inbox and does errands in a computer in Hark’s cloud, driven by Hark’s own Handoff computer-use model. Hark calls it the operating system for your life and plans a hardware device for 2027.
- Is Hark Pro free?
- Yes, with a usage cap. Every feature is on the free tier; Pro² is $20 a month for twice the usage and Pro³ is $100 for ten times, with credit top-ups and auto top-up. Hark publishes no absolute usage numbers, so what a cap means in tasks is not stated. The first 100,000 sign-ups were promised a paid plan free, tier and duration unstated.
- Is there an open source Hark Pro?
- Not from Hark. It is closed and hosted, its Terms forbid reverse engineering, and there is no self-hosting. MausBot is the open source alternative in the same category: Apache 2.0, code on GitHub, running on your own machine.
- Does Hark Pro have a desktop app, or control my computer?
- No to both. Hark Pro is web, iOS and Android, and its computer is a virtual machine in Hark’s cloud that it operates for you. MausBot is a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Ubuntu, and its bots run the Claude, Codex and Grok CLIs on your own machine, with an approval card before every command.
- Is hark.dev the same thing?
- No. hark.dev serves nothing as of October 8, 2026. Hark Pro lives at hark.com, and hark.ai redirects there. The product is also not from Figure AI, despite some headlines; Hark Labs is a separate company with the same founder.
Read next
- Hark Pro alternative, the one-page summary of this comparison.
- Muse vs Grok Bot vs dots vs Cue, the other single-assistant launches beside MausBot.
- Which AI agent should I use?