Hosting guide · Facts verified 2026-10-13

Can OpenClaw run on a Raspberry Pi?

Yes. OpenClaw's gateway runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS and at least 1 GB of RAM (2 GB or more recommended), because the models run in the cloud and the Pi only orchestrates. A Pi 5 with 4 GB costs $110 and draws about 4 W under typical load.

terminal64-bit OS
# Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit), flashed with SSH enabled
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y git curl build-essential

# Node.js 24, as OpenClaw's Pi guide installs it
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_24.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

# 2 GB of swap: needed on 2 GB boards, harmless on bigger ones
sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile && sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile && sudo swapon /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Raspberry Pi Imager can set the hostname, SSH and Wi-Fi before first boot. The provider file passed openclaw config validate on OpenClaw 2026.10.3, and onboarding kept it as the default model.

Which Pi to buy

BoardPriceOpenClaw's verdict
Pi 5, 4 GB$110Best: fastest, recommended
Pi 5, 8 GB$175Best, with room for browser automation
Pi 4, 4 GB$100Good: the sweet spot for most users
Pi 4, 2 GB$67.50OK, with swap

Verdicts from OpenClaw's Raspberry Pi guide. US list prices after Raspberry Pi's 2026 increases; the 4 GB and 8 GB prices are the December 2025 prices plus the February and April memory-driven rises. OpenClaw's guide still says $35 to $80. Add a power supply and a USB SSD.

Running cost

At about 4 W, a Pi 5 uses around 3 kWh a month, under a dollar at 30 cents per kWh. Against a $7 VPS the board alone pays for itself in about 16 months; a power supply and an SSD add a few more.

OpenClaw's guide says to keep local models off the Pi, since even small ones are too slow to be useful. Every reply is a call to a cloud model.

What a busy day costs on the model side

The power bill is the same on a quiet day and a busy one. These are the model figures for a day as busy as our busiest tenth.

Sonnet 5.5, meteredOpus 5.5, meteredStandard Compute
One busy dayAbout $35About $70Up to the $20 budget of the $19 plan
Busy every day for a month$1,048$2,095$19
What stops itA spend limit, if you set oneA spend limit, if you set oneThe budget: new requests get HTTP 402

A busy day is our 90th-percentile agent-day: 775 requests and 79M tokens over a median of 14 active hours, priced at list price with the cache hits it really had (method). A day like that can use the whole Starter budget; smart routing stretches it, and larger plans raise it.

The catch

A Pi on home Wi-Fi goes offline with your router, and an SD card wears under an agent's constant writes. OpenClaw's guide recommends Ethernet and a USB SSD for the state directory.

Where Standard Compute fits

Standard Compute is an OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible API at https://api.stdcmpt.com/v1, with plans from $19 a month. Each plan has a fixed compute budget ($20 on Starter); when it is used, new requests get HTTP 402 and running ones finish, so there is no overage. Smart routing keeps the Pi's heartbeats and routine steps on efficient models, which is where an idle agent's spend goes.

FAQ

Is a Raspberry Pi 4 good enough for OpenClaw?

Yes. OpenClaw rates the Pi 4 with 4 GB as the sweet spot for most users and the 2 GB model as fine with swap. A 1 GB Pi 4 works with swap and a minimal config.

Can I run a local LLM on the Pi with OpenClaw?

OpenClaw's guide advises against it: even small models are too slow on a Pi to be useful. Run the gateway on the Pi and the models through a cloud API.

Raspberry Pi or VPS for OpenClaw?

A Pi costs $67.50 to $175 once plus under a dollar a month in power; a small VPS costs about $7 a month with a datacenter connection. Choose the Pi for your home network and local devices, the VPS for uptime.

Should I boot the Pi from an SSD?

OpenClaw recommends it. SD cards are slow and wear out under an agent's writes; a USB SSD is faster and lasts longer. You can keep the OS on the SD card and put OpenClaw's state directory on the SSD.

Does OpenClaw need a 64-bit OS on the Pi?

Yes. OpenClaw requires 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS and does not support 32-bit images. Its guide uses Raspberry Pi OS Lite, since a headless gateway needs no desktop.

Related guides