What We Built and Why
Kilo is an open-source agentic coding platform. That means IDE extensions for VS Code and JetBrains, a CLI, cloud agents, the works. We process a lot of code. And one of the things we built that we're most proud of is our Code Review feature: automated, intelligent reviews that run on your pull requests and flag issues across performance, security, style, and test coverage.
We use it ourselves. Our contributors use it. And we kept thinking: the projects that would benefit most from this are the ones with the least resources to pay for it.
So we built a sponsorship program. 280 Participants and counting!
How It Works
The Kilo Open Source Sponsorship Program provides qualifying open-source projects with free access to Kilo's tooling , starting with Code Reviews, and scaling up based on your project's size and activity.
There are three tiers:
Seed — For smaller and early-stage projects. 5 Enterprise seats + automated Code Reviews on your public PRs. Worth about $9,000/year.
Growth — For large, active projects with regular contributors. 15 Enterprise seats + $20–100/month in Kilo Credits + Code Reviews. Worth about $27,000/year.
Premier — For high-visibility projects with significant communities. 25 Enterprise seats + $200/month in Kilo Credits + Code Reviews. Worth about $48,000/year.
Tier placement is made on a rolling basis, once we review your application and place you based on repository activity, community size, and project visibility.
What You Actually Get
Automated Code Reviews on your public PRs. Kilo shows up in your pull request review flow and reviews for performance, security, style, and test coverage. It's not a static code analysis tool. It reads the code, understands the context, and gives you the kind of feedback you'd expect from a senior engineer on your team, one that has access to endless coffee, never gets tired, and never misses a PR.
Enterprise access. All accepted projects get full Enterprise seats. That means advanced team features, usage analytics, and priority support for everyone working on your project.
Kilo Credits (Growth and Premier tiers). Credits you can use across any of Kilo's tools, including IDE extension, CLI, cloud agents, app builder. You pay-per-token at provider cost, no markup.
Access to free models. All tiers include access to free models at no cost.. Currently Grok Code Fast 1, Mistral Devstral 2, and KAT-Coder-Pro V1.
Visibility. We'll feature your project on our website and potentially in marketing materials. If you want your project to get in front of Kilo's 1M+ users, this is one way to do that.
A direct support channel. Selected projects get a dedicated channel to talk to Kilo team members directly. Not a ticket queue.
What We Ask In Return
Three things:
Your project must be open source with a public repository and a valid OSS license (MIT or equivalent).
You enable Code Reviews on your public PRs, Kilo will appear in your review flow.
You consent to being featured in Kilo's OSS showcase: website features, marketing materials, links to public PRs using Code Reviews.
That's it. No vendor lock-in, no exclusivity requirement, no "you must tweet about us" clause.
Why We're Doing This
Honestly? A few reasons.
Open source is infrastructure. A lot of the code that runs the internet is maintained by people working nights and weekends with no budget for tooling. That's always felt like an oversight in how the tech industry thinks about sustainability.
We also think AI-powered code review is genuinely better when it runs on real, diverse, production open source code. Your contributors write differently than our internal team does. Your PR patterns are different. Your codebases have different histories and constraints. Every project that runs Kilo Code Reviews helps make the tool sharper for the whole community.
And yes, we want more developers to know Kilo exists. We think the best way to do that is to be useful first.
Who Should Apply
If your project checks these boxes, you're a good candidate:
- Public repository with an active OSS license
- Regular PRs being opened (doesn't have to be high-volume, just active)
- Maintainers who would actually use the tooling
We're reviewing applications on a rolling basis. Applying doesn't guarantee acceptance, we'll reach out directly to projects we accept.
Apply
Questions? Drop into our Discord or email hi@kilocode.ai.
And if you're an OSS maintainer who's skeptical of sponsored programs in general: fair. We'd rather you check out the code (github.com/Kilo-Org/kilocode) and make your own judgment than take our word for it.
I'm Erik, one of Kilo's community managers. I spend most of my time in our Discord working with developers who are building with AI and supporting the open source projects that power the ecosystem. If you're maintaining an OSS project or just want to talk shop, come find me.
Kilo is the open-source agentic coding platform , IDE extensions for VS Code and JetBrains, CLI, cloud agents, and more. 1M users, 21T+ tokens processed, #1 app on OpenRouter. kilo.ai
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