In January 2026, Censys found over 21,000 exposed OpenClaw instances on the open internet. Self-hosting OpenClaw is not just about the €5-20/month VPS cost. The hidden costs are brutal.
Security patching alone eats 312-1300 developer hours per year. A small team burns 15-30% of their development time just on updates. Not features. Not bugfixes. Just patching.
I watched a developer spend three days debugging why his Telegram config disappeared after every restart. The problem? A single wrong line in docker-compose.yml. Quotes around the bot token.
This article breaks down the real costs of self-hosting vs managed OpenClaw hosting, and shows how to get a production-ready AI agent running in under 60 seconds.
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