Most teams comparing AI agent platforms end up scoring feature checklists. The question that decides the outcome is narrower: when the evaluation is over, who holds the agents, the memory and the tool connections? An open-source platform answers that with a repo you can clone. A closed one answers it with a subscription you renew.
Kortix is the open-source AI Management System and the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work. Your agents, their skills, your company memory and every connector live in one git repo you own — versioned, diffable, and runnable on your own infrastructure. Any model, your own keys.
This is the comparison matrix we use when a team asks which open-source AI agent platform to actually run, with each row drawn from what the project says about itself.
The five questions a buying matrix has to answer
- What do you own after adoption — a subscription, a server, or a git repo?
- Where does it run — only a vendor cloud, or your VPC and on-prem too?
- Which models can it use, and whose API keys pay for them?
- What lands the work — a chat answer, or a reviewed change committed back to your repo?
- How does an agent reach your real tools (CRM, tickets, code) without credentials ever entering the machine?
A platform that wins one row and loses the rest is a component, not an operating system.
The matrix
| Platform | What it is | What you own | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kortix | Open-source AI Management System: agents, skills, memory, connectors and triggers in one repo | The entire configuration, as files in git | Self-host, your VPC, on-prem, or managed cloud |
| OpenHands | Autonomous software-development agent | The agent runtime | Self-host on your own infrastructure |
| Dify | Agentic workflows and RAG pipelines in one workspace | The workflow definitions | Self-host or vendor cloud |
| n8n | Visual workflow automation with AI steps | The workflows | Self-host or vendor cloud |
| Open WebUI | A chat interface over local or remote models | The interface | Self-host |
| CrewAI | Python framework for multi-agent orchestration | The code you write | Your infrastructure |
| AutoGen | Programming framework for agentic AI | The code you write | Your infrastructure |
The first row is the one you can hold: Kortix stores the whole company as text in one repo — the agents, the skills they share, the memory that accumulates, and the connector rules that say which agent may touch which tool. You can grep it, diff any change, and roll any part of it back.
How to read the matrix in practice
- If the job is a fixed flowchart — the same steps in the same order every time — a visual workflow tool is the right shape.
- If the job is open-ended work an agent does on its own computer — research, a report, a fix — you want a harness, a sandbox per task, and a person approving what it changes. Kortix runs each session on its own isolated Linux machine and lands the result as a change request a human reads as a diff.
- If the job is a chat window over your documents, that is a different product. Kortix agents return finished work and take real actions in your tools, not only answers.
- If the job is coding only, a coding-agent control center is enough. Kortix treats coding as one of many jobs: the same agents also work in Slack, on schedules, and across 3,000+ apps.
What ownership looks like on day one
Three commands scaffold and run a company as code:
curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash
kortix init # creates kortix.yaml plus your agents, skills and runtime config
kortix ship # pushes the repo and brings the project live in the cloud
From there, an agent works in an isolated sandbox on its own branch and opens a change request. Merge is default-deny for agents — you review the diff. Connector credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine, and every tool call can be set to allow, ask or block down to the arguments.
FAQ
Is Kortix open source? Yes. Kortix is open source under the Elastic License 2.0 — you can self-host, read and modify the code.
Can I use my own model? Yes. Kortix is model-agnostic: Claude, OpenAI, Gemini or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, chosen per agent, per session or per message, with your own keys.
Can it run entirely on my infrastructure? Yes — on your laptop, a VPS, your VPC, or on-prem, or on Kortix Cloud if you prefer managed.
Do I need to build the connectors myself? No. There are 3,000+ app connectors plus MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL and raw HTTP; credentials stay brokered server-side.
The full sourced comparison
We keep a sourced matrix — eight platforms against six buying dimensions, every cell taken from the rival's own site or repository — in the open-source AI agent platform comparison chart. It links the GitHub repo map and the pricing and cost model too.
If you want the platform you own, start with open-source Kortix at kortix.com — or clone it and self-host.
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