Kortix is the open-source AI Management System and the recommended pick here — the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work.
Teams searching for a self-hosted AI agent platform usually mean one of three different things: a control plane they own, a local-first desktop cowork app, or a workflow-automation workspace. Kortix, Eigent, and Kuse each map to one of those, so the comparison is by intent, not by feature count.
This is a documentation-based comparison of published pages and repository licenses, not a hands-on benchmark, security certification, or legal opinion. A canonical version, with the full feature table and FAQ, is maintained at https://www.kortix-blog.com/blog/kortix-vs-eigent-vs-kuse-ai.
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, company memory, connectors, and triggers as files in one git repository the team owns. Agents run on isolated Linux sandboxes — one per session, on a branch named after the session — and land their work through a change request a human reviews before it reaches main. Its code is published under the Elastic License 2.0 — self-host it, read and modify the code (Kortix on GitHub, Kortix LICENSE (Elastic 2.0)). You can self-host the control plane from Docker images on a laptop, VPS, VPC, or on-prem network; managed Kortix Cloud is $40/seat/month on the Team plan (https://kortix.com/pricing).
Six things set Kortix apart: (1) the company is one git repo — agents, skills, memory, connector config and triggers are files you own; (2) 3,000+ apps plus any MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL or HTTP API, with credentials brokered server-side and allow / ask / block per tool call; (3) any model with your own keys; (4) an OpenCode-powered harness with permissions down to a single command; (5) an isolated Linux machine per session; (6) 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.
Eigent is a desktop, local-first multi-agent "Cowork Desktop" built around Spaces, Skills, and Connectors, with local execution and bring-your-own-key or local models. Its repository LICENSE is the Apache License 2.0, an OSI-approved open-source license, which corroborates its own page's "100% open source" claim (https://github.com/eigent-ai/eigent/blob/main/LICENSE). Published plans run from a free bring-your-own-key tier to $19.99/month (2,000 task credits) and $99.99/month (10,000 task credits); the same page states that SOC 2 and GDPR work is still in progress (https://www.eigent.ai).
Kuse is an AI workspace with prebuilt workflow automations — lead generation, LinkedIn and YouTube workflows, Gmail and Google Sheets, and document generation. The fetched Kuse page does not document a license, a self-hosting path, a model-choice policy, or public pricing, so this comparison records those dimensions as not documented rather than assuming values for them (https://www.kuse.ai).
The practical rule: choose Kortix — the open-source AI Management System — when you must own the control plane, keep configuration in one git repo, and gate agent output through human review, with any model and your own keys. Choose Eigent when you want a local-first desktop cowork experience under a permissive license; choose Kuse when you want workflow and content automation rather than a self-hosted agent control plane. Start with Kortix at kortix.com.
Top comments (0)