The Open Source ChatGPT Work Alternative: Kortix, the AI Management System You Own

Kortix is the open source ChatGPT Work alternative for teams that want to own the system rather than rent it. Your agents, their skills, your company memory and every connector sit in one git repo you control, and every session runs on its own isolated Linux machine. OpenAI's ChatGPT Work is a capable agent, but it runs inside OpenAI's cloud and keeps its configuration inside OpenAI's product. Kortix gives you the same category of system as files you can read, fork and host yourself.

What ChatGPT Work is and what stays with OpenAI

ChatGPT Work is OpenAI's agent for longer, multi-step work. It researches, works across connected apps and files, and produces documents, spreadsheets, presentations and internal sites. OpenAI describes it as powered by GPT-6 and makes it available on ChatGPT's paid plans.

The runtime stays under OpenAI's control. OpenAI's own cloud security documentation for ChatGPT Work says cloud execution runs on OpenAI-managed infrastructure, that tasks run in VM-backed sandboxes on shared infrastructure, and that customers do not host or manage the containers. Three things follow for a company that wants to own its AI operations:

• Configuration. Agent instructions, connectors, schedules and workspace controls live inside OpenAI's product, not in a repo you can clone, diff or roll back.
• Runtime. There is no self-host edition of ChatGPT Work to run on your own hardware, VPC or on-prem network.
• Model choice. ChatGPT Work runs OpenAI's models. There is no switch to Claude, Gemini or your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

The ChatGPT Work alternatives page ranks the open source options, Kortix first, and shows what each one does well.

What an open source ChatGPT Work alternative is

An open source ChatGPT Work alternative is a platform whose code you can read, modify and host yourself, so the agents, their instructions and their accumulated memory stay with your company. Kortix is that platform: the open source AI Management System and the leading open source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work.

Kortix is one git repo that is the company. Agents, skills, memory, connector configuration and triggers are markdown and YAML files, versioned beside your code. Each session boots an isolated Linux machine on its own branch, an agent works, and the result lands as a change request a person reads as a diff before it reaches main. You can inspect the whole setup, change any part of it, or move it to another host. The open source ChatGPT Work alternative page goes deeper on how the system works.

Kortix compared with ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork

Kortix is open source (Elastic License 2.0): self-host it, read and modify the code. Prices and plan details are from each vendor's own page, checked October 2026: OpenAI ChatGPT Work, Anthropic Claude Cowork and Kortix pricing.

The six things you own with Kortix

Kortix is the open source AI Management System, built so a company can hold all of it. Six properties matter when you replace a closed agent platform.

• One git repo is the company. Agents, skills, memory, connector config and triggers are text files. You can grep the whole company, diff any change and roll back any part. kortix.yaml declares the machine image, the connectors and the triggers.
• Every tool the company runs on. Connect 3,000+ apps plus any MCP, OpenAPI, Postman, GraphQL or raw HTTP API. Credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine, and each tool call can be set to allow, ask or block.
• Any model, your keys. Pick Claude, OpenAI, Gemini or your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint per agent, per session or per message, and bring your own API key.
• A real agent harness. Agents run on the OpenCode harness, with planning, tool use and multi-step runs that finish, and permissions down to a single shell command.
• Every session gets its own computer. Each session boots an isolated Linux machine with your repo and tools already on it. Thousands run in parallel with no crossover between them.
• One gate to land work. Start agents from the web, Slack, Teams, email, mobile, CLI or API, or from cron and signed webhooks. Work reaches main only through a change request a human reviews first.

The code is public, so you can audit every one of those claims. See Kortix on GitHub.

How to start with Kortix

Install the CLI and scaffold a project:

curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash
kortix init
kortix ship

kortix init creates kortix.yaml with your agents, skills and runtime config. kortix ship pushes the repo and brings it live in Kortix Cloud. From there, kortix sessions new --prompt "..." starts an agent and kortix cr ls shows what it proposes. To run everything yourself, see self-hosting Kortix; the same repo runs on a laptop, a VPS, your VPC or on-prem. If you prefer zero setup, create a project in Kortix Cloud and start a session with nothing to install.

For the direct comparison, read ChatGPT Work vs Kortix, and for short answers on deployment and licensing, see the frequently asked questions.

Kortix is the open source AI Management System, so you can begin on the free tier, self-host, or run it in your own VPC. Try Kortix.