been using claude via the api through openclaw for about 6 weeks and in some ways it’s better than claude.ai directly. the big thing: persistent memory across sessions. i don’t re-explain my business context or my preferences or my projects every single conversation. my agent knows everything. it builds up over weeks. by week 3 it knew my writing style, my team members’ names, my recurring tasks, what kind of email summaries i prefer. and it lives in telegram. i can interact with claude from literally anywhere. walking, in bed, during meetings (don’t tell anyone), standing in line at the store. just text it like i’d text a friend. the downside nobody mentions: cost. claude sonnet through the api with openclaw’s heartbeat system burns tokens way faster than a $20 pro subscription. i was at $52 my first month before i optimized. got it down to about $17 after disabling overnight heartbeat and routing simple tasks to cheaper models. also the deployment side is its own project. self hosting openclaw means learning docker, firewall rules, security hardening, dealing with updates that break things every 2 weeks. there are managed platforms now that handle all the infrastructure. might make sense if you just want the “claude on telegram with memory” experience without becoming a devops engineer. anyone else running claude through openclaw? what model are you using? sonnet for everything or do you route different tasks to different models? thinking about trying opus for the heavy analysis stuff and using deepseek for the routine queries submitted by /u/DullContribution3191
Originally posted by u/DullContribution3191 on r/ClaudeCode
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