# Muse by Meta 147 Hacker News commenters recommended Muse by Meta and 232 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 0 years (4 owners). **Verdict:** A polished personal AI agent praised for handling real browsing tasks, generous free usage and sandboxed security, though many distrust Meta with personal data and access. ## Why people recommend it - Polished, just-works experience (7 comments): "It's the most consistent and user friendly agent with the ability to also be a harness for multiple custom agents." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49948585)) "it's a really nice implementation of a personal assistant. It genuinely feels great and makes me want to use it!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49952269)) "the way they developed and launched Muse was really well done in terms of both functionality and transparency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188834)) - Handles real tasks and browsing (6 comments): "I've been alpha testing muse and there's precisely one area it's useful in.... Finding things on Facebook marketplace and haggling for me lol" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622074)) "One use case I've been having a lot of success with is using Muse's browser use capabilities to cut through annoying web UIs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188093)) "it dug through all of the SAS emails and actually found the emails confirming that the food fees were reimbursed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49619764)) - Free with generous usage (5 comments): "It's the best free vps on the market right now. Comes with a coding harness and a few hundred million tokens on a decent model." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805114)) "Muse is totally free. It doesn't throw up gauntlet messages to use it like GPT does even for paying members." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49887132)) "I have not been hit with any usage limit messages and was able to build a simple iPhone app with it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904513)) - Thoughtful security and sandboxing (4 comments): "Dots and Muse both utilize a secure password store that can hold and enter credentials without exposing them to the model." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904285)) "it was not easy to mentally give that access, but then I heard from friends how much work was put in into securing it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620719)) "It runs in an isolated sandboxed VM separate from stored credentials etc; this is effectively your own computer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49980779)) ## What people warn about - Distrust of Meta with data (6 comments): "It's not a bad product idea, but adoption might be rough because of all the negative goodwill that Meta has accumulated over the years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615972)) "The model is decent and cheap under contributor version but no way I’m letting meta AI anywhere near anything that matters in my life." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49980192)) "If there is one company that I'd never ever use for running a personal agent, that would be Meta." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49619039)) - Privacy and data exfiltration risks (4 comments): "The appropriate use of Muse is to use it for (a) non-personal queries and (b) never connect it to any sources of personal info." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49963797)) "Meta claimed that Muse would not access your messages without you granting it the second permission, even after your granted it the first." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49982656)) "pretty obviously designed -whether intentionally or not- to enable the exfiltration of a ton of sensitive data to untrusted third parties" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49962801)) - Can make confident harmful mistakes (3 comments): "I think they did a pretty bang up job with Muse (the lack of communication with first-time agent users around how powerfully and confidently they can make horrifying mistakes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49980111)) "You can ask Meta Muse to take actions that clearly break other site's terms of service and it happily does it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803304)) "you wouldn't want it to send them all of your photos or to purchase things you don't want" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49619699)) - Limited usefulness for many tasks (4 comments): "I've been alpha testing muse and there's precisely one area it's useful in.... Finding things on Facebook marketplace and haggling for me lol" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622074)) "The schedule your tennis lessons and do your travel package list scenarios are of course rubbish." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49616249)) "Literally none of these examples are improved by this kind of personal AI agent; on the contrary, it means letting your agency be dictated by companies that do not have your interests in mind." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49616003)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [OpenClaw](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openclaw.md): 776 recommend - [Hermes Agent by Nous Research](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hermes-agent.md): 84 recommend - [Clawdbot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clawdbot.md): 69 recommend - [NanoClaw](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nanoclaw.md): 58 recommend - [Manus AI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/manus.md): 41 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Muse by Meta", https://hackerapproved.com/p/muse/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).