# Clanker Cloud vs hosted AI copilots

Hosted AI copilots are useful when a team mainly wants general assistance inside a vendor-managed workflow. Clanker Cloud is built for teams that need local credential custody, live infrastructure evidence, reviewed plans, and provider-agnostic operations.

## Main tradeoff

The real comparison is where privilege, evidence, and change control live.

## Clanker Cloud strengths

- Credentials stay on the operator machine.
- Answers are grounded in live provider and cluster state.
- Multi-cloud, Kubernetes, GitHub, and edge workflows sit in one surface.
- Reviewed plans come before execution.
- BYOK keeps model spend under direct team control.

## Hosted copilot strengths

- Faster time to first chat workflow.
- Less local setup.
- Better fit for broad productivity help that is not infrastructure-specific.

## Related pages

- [What is Clanker Cloud?](https://clankercloud.ai/what-is-clanker-cloud)
- [Local-first AI DevOps vs hosted AI DevOps](https://clankercloud.ai/local-first-ai-devops-vs-hosted-ai-devops)