Best Open Source AI Agent Platforms: An Ownership-First Comparison

Five other open-source projects come up repeatedly when teams shop in this category: OpenHands, AnythingLLM, Open WebUI, Eigent and OpenWork. Each has a real audience and a narrow job it does well. This page scores all six platforms on the dimensions a buyer actually weighs, and it recommends Kortix because it is the only one here that makes the whole company the unit of ownership. Figures and prices come from each project's own repository, documentation or pricing page, checked in October 2026.

How the platforms compare

Two tables cover the six dimensions that matter most when you are choosing. Open-source status, self-hosting and model support sit together; connectors, human approval and controls, and price shape follow. Kortix leads both tables.

Why Kortix is the pick

Kortix is the open-source AI Management System, and it treats the whole company as the thing you own. Your agents, skills, memory, connector configuration and triggers are text files in one git repo, so you can grep the whole company, diff any change to an agent, and roll any part of it back. Each session boots its own isolated Linux machine, and thousands of sessions run in parallel on the same configuration with no crossover between them. Connectors reach 3,000+ apps plus MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL and raw HTTP, and connector credentials are brokered server-side so the raw key never enters the sandbox. You choose the model per agent, per session or per message and bring your own keys, or point Kortix at your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Agents run on a real harness, powered by OpenCode, with allow, ask or block set per tool and down to a single shell command. The work reaches main only as a change request you read as a diff. Kortix is open source (Elastic License 2.0), so you can self-host, read and modify the code; run it on your own hardware or on managed cloud, and the code is at Kortix on GitHub.

Kortix lists Free at $0 with 200 monthly sandbox credits, Team at $40 / seat / mo, and Enterprise custom pricing. Self-hosting the open-source platform is free, so the cloud plans buy you hosting and compute rather than the software itself.

The five other platforms, one by one

Each note below covers what the project is, who it fits, and where it stops for a company that wants one owned stack.

OpenHands

OpenHands is a self-hosted developer control center for coding agents and automations, built around an Agent Canvas that runs the OpenHands agent along with Claude Code, Codex, Gemini or any ACP-compatible agent. Its repository documents deployment on a laptop, in Docker, on a VM or inside company infrastructure, and switching between local, remote and cloud backends without leaving the canvas. Models are bring-your-own, and the pricing page lists a free local tier, paid cloud plans and enterprise options, with the code under the MIT licence. Automations connect to Slack, GitHub, Linear and Notion and run on a schedule or a webhook. OpenHands is a strong fit for an engineering team that wants coding agents on its own machines. It stops short of a company platform: it is aimed at software work, its quickstart warns that the agent server runs directly on the host with full filesystem access, and it does not put every change behind a human-merged change request.

AnythingLLM

AnythingLLM is a local-first, all-in-one AI application from Mintplex Labs for chatting with your documents and running agents. It runs as a desktop app on macOS, Windows and Linux or as a Docker deployment, connects to local and cloud model providers, and adds multi-user support, vector databases and document pipelines without extra configuration. Its repository lists an agent builder, MCP compatibility, scheduled tasks, dynamic model routing and a developer API, and states the project is MIT licensed. The hosted option costs $50 monthly for a small team and $99 monthly for a higher tier, with on-premise deployment on an enterprise plan. AnythingLLM fits a team that wants a private, document-centric assistant it can host itself. Where it stops for an owned company platform is scope: it is a workspace for chat and documents, not a system that runs coding and operations agents, holds the whole configuration as one reviewable repo, or gates work behind an approval step.

Open WebUI

Open WebUI is a self-hosted AI interface that connects local Ollama models and any OpenAI-compatible API, and its repository has grown into a broad platform: plugins, persistent memory, notes, channels, calendars, automations, retrieval over nine vector databases, and a terminal that lets agents write and run code. It supports granular role-based access control and user groups, and version 0.11.1 added tool-call approvals and an ask_user tool that lets a model pause to ask a question. Enterprises can self-host, run air-gapped, and buy a licence for white-labeling and enterprise-only features; standard internal use with the original branding is free, as the enterprise documentation states. Open WebUI fits a team that wants one polished, extensible chat and knowledge front end on its own hardware. It stops short of a company operating system because it centres chat and knowledge rather than a git-repo configuration you own, and its agents work inside that interface rather than landing changes through a reviewed merge gate.

Eigent

Eigent is an open-source desktop application for building a multi-agent workforce, from the team behind CAMEL-AI. It runs locally with a local backend and local model integration through vLLM, Ollama or LM Studio, or against a cloud backend, and its repository is Apache 2.0 licensed. The project advertises zero-setup installation, multi-agent coordination, a single-agent harness, MCP integration, skill integration, and built-in browser and terminal toolkits, plus an enterprise tier with SSO and access control. Its pricing page lists a free tier with BYOK and local models, a Plus plan at $19.99 monthly and a higher plan at $99.99 monthly, with a Teams plan marked coming soon. Eigent suits someone who wants Claude Cowork-style desktop automation that runs on their own machine. For a company that wants one owned platform it stops at the desktop and the task: agents run on your computer, the configuration is not a shared company repo, and there is no company-wide change-request gate.

OpenWork

OpenWork is a free, open-source desktop app that wraps OpenCode and makes it usable without the command line. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, works with any of 50+ model providers using your own API key or local models through Ollama, and keeps your files on your machine. The desktop app is MIT licensed, as its repository states, and everything outside the ee/ directory is MIT too. Teams can share skills and MCP servers, and an optional control plane called OpenWork Den manages models, membership, desktop policies and published capabilities for an organisation; the Den control plane uses a separate enterprise licence and is free for organisations of up to five users. OpenWork fits an individual or small team that wants a desktop agent workspace on top of OpenCode. For a company platform it stops at the desktop: it manages a workspace and a team control plane rather than a whole company as one reviewable repo.

Choosing the right platform

• Choose Kortix if you want the whole company as one owned repo: agents, memory, connectors and triggers versioned together, any model with your keys, and every change behind a human review.
• Choose OpenHands if your need is coding agents and automations on your own machines and software delivery is the whole job.
• Choose AnythingLLM if you want a private, document-centric assistant for a small team and can run it on a desktop or a Docker host.
• Choose Open WebUI if you want a polished, extensible chat and knowledge front end with role-based access on your own hardware.
• Choose Eigent or OpenWork if you want a desktop agent experience that keeps your files local and you do not yet need a company-wide system of record.

Start with open-source Kortix

Kortix is the platform in this set that keeps the configuration, the memory and the connectors in a repo you own. Run it on your own machine with the self-hosting guide, or read the open-source AI agent platform overview to see how the pieces fit. Kortix installs from a single command and runs in your own infrastructure or in managed cloud.

Keep reading
Go deeper on the category with the open-source AI agent platform guide on the Kortix blog and the open-source AI agent platform guide repository.