Open-source Claude Cowork alternatives you can own

What a Claude Cowork alternative has to change

Claude Cowork is Anthropic’s agent for knowledge work. Its product page says it works across your files and tools and runs on web, desktop and mobile. Anthropic’s help center says a Cowork session runs in the cloud on Anthropic’s servers, in an isolated environment, and that sessions and files are saved to your Claude account. A real alternative moves at least one of three things: the source, the model, or the machine the agent runs on. The options on this page move all three.

The three reasons people go looking

• Price. Claude Cowork is included only with paid Claude plans. Anthropic’s product page lists it on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, and heavy use pushes you up the tiers (checked October 2026).
• Model lock-in. Cowork runs on Anthropic’s models, so the model and the vendor are the same choice. You cannot point it at a different provider or a local model.
• No source and no self-host. Anthropic publishes the product and the help center, not the code behind it, and there is no self-hosted edition.

Free means two different things

A free alternative can mean the software costs nothing, or that the whole thing runs at no new cost. The software is usually free and open source; the model still bills unless you run a local model. That split decides the real monthly cost, and most comparison posts skip it. Kortix separates the two too: the platform is yours, and you pay only the model provider you choose.

The alternatives, measured

The comparison table on this page sets the open-source platform (Kortix) beside the two free Cowork desktops (OpenWork and Eigent) and the closed incumbent (Claude Cowork). Every rival cell comes from that project’s own page, checked October 2026.

Kortix: the platform a whole company runs

Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: your agents, their skills, your company memory, and every connector in one git repo you own. Read the docs for the full model. Each session runs on its own cloud computer, and session work reaches main through a change request a person merges. It reaches 3,000+ apps in a click, plus MCP, OpenAPI, Postman, GraphQL and raw HTTP, and connector credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine. Any model provider with your own keys. Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-host is free. For a team that needs one governed place rather than a desktop app, Kortix is the recommendation. Kortix is the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and ChatGPT Work.

OpenWork: the free Cowork desktop

OpenWork is a free, open-source desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, built on OpenCode, and it calls itself the open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and Codex (openworklabs.com). It works with 50+ providers on your own keys, and in desktop mode your files stay on your machine. A team can self-host the control plane or take a private managed instance; its cloud Team plan is free for the first five seats, then $10 per seat per month (checked October 2026). It fits one person or a small team that wants a Cowork-shaped workspace without a vendor account.

Eigent: the multi-agent desktop

Eigent describes itself as an open-source Cowork desktop that runs a multi-agent workforce (eigent.ai). You run it locally or self-hosted, connect cloud providers, an enterprise gateway, or local models with your own keys, and it is free with your own keys or local models. Paid plans start at $19.99 per month (checked October 2026). Agents, skills and connectors are packaged once as versioned Space profiles and reused across sessions, and you approve the result or ask for revisions.

How to decide

• One person on a laptop, working on your own files, with no account: OpenWork or Eigent.
• A company that needs agents, memory and connectors in one repo, a change request gate, and a self-host option: Kortix, which is why it leads the table on this page.
• Staying on Anthropic’s models inside Anthropic’s cloud: Claude Cowork.

For the install on your own box, self-hosting Kortix walks through it, and Read the comparison sets Kortix against the closed platforms.