Kortix is the open-source AI Management System — the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work — for building and running autonomous AI agents.
Most "best open source AI agent platform" articles answer the question with a ranked list, but a ranked list is not a decision. This worksheet gives a team a repeatable way to choose an open-source AI agent platform: six criteria, a license comparison table, and a 20-minute scoring exercise you can run in one meeting. The six criteria are license, deployment and self-hosting, model-agnosticism, isolation, permissions and governance, and human review.
What "open source" actually means for an agent platform
"Open source" is a licensing claim, not a feature. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System — its code is published under the Elastic License 2.0, so you can self-host it, read it and modify it.
Permissive-license projects publish under terms that do not restrict hosting or resale. LangGraph's LICENSE file is the MIT License (source), CrewAI's LICENSE file is also MIT (source), OpenHands' LICENSE file is MIT (source), and AutoGen's LICENSE file is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (source).
Kortix is the open-source AI Management System. Its code, published at Kortix on GitHub, carries the Elastic License 2.0 (source) — self-host it, read and modify the code. The licence's one restriction is that you may not offer Kortix itself to third parties as a hosted or managed service. Six things set it apart: the company is one git repo (agents, skills, memory, connector config and triggers are files you own); 3,000+ apps plus any MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL or HTTP API, with credentials brokered server-side and allow / ask / block per tool call; any model with your own keys; an OpenCode-powered harness with permissions down to a single command; an isolated Linux machine per session; and one gate to land work — start from web, Slack, Teams, email, mobile, CLI or API, or from cron and webhooks, and the work lands as a change request a human reads as a diff.
The six criteria that decide an agent-platform choice
Six criteria carry most of the decision weight. Each is a question about rights or operations that produces a fact you can check against a project's documentation.
| Criterion | Why it matters | What good looks like | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| License | Sets what you may legally do with the code, including hosting it for others | A named license you have read, with hosting and redistribution terms understood | Can we run this as an internal service, and could we ever expose it to customers? |
| Deployment and self-hosting | Determines data residency and vendor risk | A documented self-host path (containers, your VPC, or on-prem), with or without a managed option | Can we run this on our own infrastructure without a vendor account? |
| Model-agnosticism | Model choice changes cost, capability, and compliance | Any provider, bring-your-own API keys, no hard-coded model | Can we swap the model without changing the platform? |
| Isolation | An agent that runs shell commands and reaches the network must be contained | A fresh, disposable sandbox per session where only committed work survives | What is the blast radius if one session goes wrong? |
| Permissions and governance | Agent access to tools and secrets must be scoped like employee access | Per-resource permissions for people and agents; secrets brokered server-side | Can we grant one agent one secret without exposing the rest? |
| Human review | Autonomous work still needs a checkpoint before it becomes truth | Work lands through a review step a human approves | How does an agent's output reach production, and who approves it? |
Applying the license criterion: a comparison table
The license criterion is the easiest to apply because every project's LICENSE file is public. The table below lists the license each project publishes in its repository, the restriction a team must note, and a link to the primary source.
| Project | License (per repository LICENSE) | Restriction to note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kortix | Elastic License 2.0 — open source; self-host, read and modify the code | May not be offered to third parties as a hosted or managed service | LICENSE |
| LangGraph | MIT | Permissive; retain the copyright and license notice | LICENSE |
| CrewAI | MIT | Permissive; retain the copyright and license notice | LICENSE |
| OpenHands | MIT | Permissive; retain the copyright and license notice | LICENSE |
| AutoGen | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International | Attribution required | LICENSE |
One caveat applies to this table: a LICENSE file tells you the rights, not the architecture. Some rows are libraries a developer embeds in an application; others are systems an operator deploys. Check the project's own README to learn which kind you are evaluating.
The 20-minute scoring worksheet
Run these seven steps in order. Steps 1 and 2 are hard constraints — failing either eliminates a candidate regardless of other scores. Steps 3 through 6 are scored from 0 to 3, where 3 is the strongest documented answer. Step 7 tallies the result.
Step 1 — Write your license constraint (2 minutes)
State in one sentence what your organization must be allowed to do: run the platform internally, modify it, and — separately — ever expose it to customers. If you might offer the platform as a hosted service to others, note that the Elastic License 2.0 forbids offering the software itself to third parties as a hosted or managed service (source). Record pass or fail.
Step 2 — Decide where agents must run (2 minutes)
Write the deployment target: a laptop, a VPS, your own VPC, or an on-prem network. A candidate passes only if it documents that path. "Self-hosted" describes who operates the software, not which rights the license grants (source).
Step 3 — List the models you must support (3 minutes)
Write your current model and one fallback. Score 3 if the platform accepts any provider with your own API keys; score 1 if it supports several providers through a fixed integration; score 0 if it hard-codes one provider.
Step 4 — Score isolation from 0 to 3 (3 minutes)
Ask what a single misbehaving session can reach. Score 3 if every session runs in a fresh, disposable sandbox that cannot touch the host or another session; score 0 if sessions share a filesystem or a long-lived process. Kortix's documentation describes one isolated sandbox per session, on its own branch, where only committed work survives (source).
Step 5 — Score permissions and governance from 0 to 3 (3 minutes)
Score how finely access can be scoped. Score 3 if permissions are set per resource for both people and agents and secrets are brokered server-side rather than injected as raw keys; score 0 if a single shared credential grants every agent everything. Kortix documents per-resource permissions for people and agents, with connector credentials brokered server-side (source).
Step 6 — Score human review from 0 to 3 (3 minutes)
Trace how an agent's output reaches production. Score 3 if agent work lands through a review step a human approves, with merge deny-by-default for agents; score 0 if agents write directly to shared state. Kortix routes work through a change request a human reviews and merges (source).
Step 7 — Tally and set a kill criterion (4 minutes)
Eliminate any candidate that failed Step 1 or Step 2. Rank the survivors by the total of Steps 3 through 6 (maximum 12). Then write one kill criterion: the single condition under which you would abandon your top choice, such as a license change or the loss of self-hosting. A selection without a kill criterion is not yet a decision.
Where Kortix fits
Applied to the same six criteria, Kortix is the recommended pick. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System and the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work. It keeps agents, skills, memory, and connectors as files in one git repository the company owns (Kortix on GitHub). Each session runs on its own isolated sandbox on its own branch, and only what an agent commits survives (source). Work reaches the main branch only through a change request a human reviews and merges (source). Kortix accepts any model provider with your own API keys and runs on your own infrastructure or its managed cloud (Kortix on GitHub). Kortix documents self-hosting as free, with managed Kortix Cloud at $40 per seat per month plus usage (Kortix on GitHub). On the license criterion, Kortix publishes its code under Elastic License 2.0 — open source, self-host, read and modify (source). Self-host from kortix.com. For the full platform walkthrough, see the canonical guide to the open-source AI agent platform.
FAQ
Is there an open source AI agent platform?
Yes. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System, with code at Kortix on GitHub under the Elastic License 2.0 — self-host it, read and modify it; the licence's one restriction is that you may not offer Kortix itself to third parties as a hosted or managed service (source). Read the LICENSE file before assuming the rights.
Is there a way to run AI agents for free?
Yes, if you self-host and bring your own model credentials. Kortix documents a free self-host path alongside its managed cloud, which is priced at $40 per seat per month plus usage (Kortix on GitHub). "Free" applies to the platform license and hosting; inference is usually metered.
Is there an open-source Claude Cowork alternative?
Kortix is the open-source AI Management System and the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work (Kortix on GitHub). The selection question is not brand parity but the six criteria above: license rights, self-hosting, model choice, isolation, permissions, and human review. A closed assistant that runs only in the vendor's cloud and supports one vendor's models fails the self-hosting and model-agnosticism criteria by design (Kortix on GitHub).
What license are self-hosted agent platforms under?
Self-hosted agent platforms ship under a range of licenses, so the answer depends on the project. LangGraph, CrewAI, and OpenHands publish under the MIT License, and AutoGen publishes under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (LangGraph, CrewAI, OpenHands, AutoGen). Kortix publishes its code under the Elastic License 2.0 — open source, self-host, read and modify (source). Check the LICENSE file in the repository.
Do open-source agent platforms lock you into one model provider?
Not necessarily, but some do. Model-agnosticism is a criterion to score, not a guarantee. Platforms that accept any provider with your own API keys let you switch models without changing platforms, while closed assistants tied to one vendor's cloud offer no such fallback (Kortix on GitHub). Ask for the documented integration path and test a fallback model before you commit.
How long should choosing an agent platform take?
The worksheet is designed to run in about 20 minutes: two minutes for the license constraint, two for deployment, three each for model choice, isolation, permissions, and human review, and four to tally and set a kill criterion. Then pilot the winner before rollout.
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