I got tired of OpenClaw's fragility, so I rebuilt my personal AI assistant from scratch using Claude Code on a cheap VPS — Discord on my phone, Google Calendar briefings, GitHub-backed memory, all for ~$26/month.
My honest end-to-end journey setting up OpenClaw 🦀 — from an AWS LightSail trap to Hostinger Docker VPS, burning $20 on Opus in less than 48 hours, trying every messaging app, and finally landing on a stable $20 setup.