# Claude Cowork vs Perplexity Computer, and the open-source option a team owns

> Claude Cowork and Perplexity Computer both hand work to an agent running in a vendor's cloud, and neither one publishes its source. This compares them on hosting, models, connectors and review, then places open-source Kortix beside both.

URL: https://opensourceclaudecowork.com/claude-cowork-vs-perplexity-computer

_Compare_

## Claude Cowork and Perplexity Computer, measured side by side

Kortix leads the table, and each rival column states only what that vendor's own current page documents.

| | Kortix (recommended) | Claude Cowork | Perplexity Computer |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Yes | No | No |
| Where it runs | Kortix Cloud, your VPC, or your own on-prem network | Anthropic's servers, or your own cloud account | Perplexity's cloud, in an isolated environment |
| Self-hosting | Yes, self-host is free | No | No |
| Models | Any model provider with your own keys | Anthropic's models only | A managed mix of frontier models, routed per task |
| Connectors | 3,000+ apps, plus MCP, OpenAPI, Postman, GraphQL and raw HTTP | Claude connectors to your existing tools | Gmail, Slack, Notion, Calendar and hundreds more |
| Review gate | Session work reaches main through a change request | You approve the plan before significant actions | You review and guide the work as it runs |
| Built for | A workforce, not one assistant | Knowledge work inside the vendor's app | Hand off a project, get finished deliverables |
| Free to start | Self-host is free | Paid Claude plans only | Paid Perplexity plans only |

## Claude Cowork and Perplexity Computer, and where a team's options diverge

Perplexity Computer is a hosted agent from Perplexity that takes a described outcome, splits it into subtasks, and runs sub-agents across a managed mix of frontier models. Every task runs in an isolated compute environment in Perplexity's cloud, and the result comes back as a finished deliverable inside Perplexity's product. Claude Cowork is Anthropic's version of the same shape: an agent for knowledge work, running inside Claude's app, with the work history kept in your Claude account.

### Both keep the source and the machine

Neither Perplexity Computer nor Claude Cowork publishes its source, and neither offers a self-hosted edition. Perplexity Computer is available on paid Perplexity plans, and Claude Cowork is included on paid Claude plans, so the work runs on the vendor's cloud under the vendor's terms. A team that needs the agent configuration, the memory and the review gate in infrastructure it controls needs a platform it can own.

### What a team owns with Kortix

Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: your agents, their skills, your company memory, and every connector in one git repo you own. The repo is the unit a team owns, and the layout is the one the rest of this site shows:

```text
acme-co/          # your whole company, as files
  agents/         # who does the work
  skills/         # how your company does a job
  memory/         # what it has learned so far
  kortix.yaml     # rules, triggers, connectors, machine image
```

Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-host is free, and the [self-hosting guide](/self-hosting) walks through the install. Any model provider with your own keys, so the model is a choice the team makes rather than one baked into the platform. Each session has its own isolated machine and branch. Session work reaches `main` through a change request. Merge is default-deny for agents, so a person reads the diff before anything lands.

### How to decide

If the job is to hand a described outcome to a hosted agent and get a polished deliverable back, Perplexity Computer and Claude Cowork both do that, and the plan you already pay for decides between them. If the job is a workforce whose agents, memory and connector config live in a repo the team owns, on a model it chooses, pick Kortix, the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and ChatGPT Work. The [open-source Claude Cowork alternatives](/claude-cowork-alternatives) page maps the wider field of owned options, and [Read the Kortix blog](https://kortix.com/blog/open-source-perplexity-computer) for a worked comparison.

_FAQ_

## Claude Cowork and Perplexity Computer, the questions teams ask

### Is Perplexity Computer open source?

No. Perplexity Computer is a hosted agent available on paid Perplexity plans, and Perplexity publishes the product rather than the code behind it. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, with your agents, skills, memory and connector config in one git repo you own.

### Can Claude Cowork or Perplexity Computer be self-hosted?

Neither one can. Claude Cowork runs on Anthropic's servers or your own cloud account, and Perplexity Computer runs in Perplexity's cloud, with no self-hosted edition from either vendor. Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network, and self-host is free.

### Which option lets a team run its own models?

Kortix. Any model provider with your own keys, so the model is a per-agent and per-session choice. Perplexity Computer runs a managed mix of frontier models, and Claude Cowork runs Anthropic's models, so on both of those the model and the vendor are the same choice.

## Own the repo your agents run from

Start with one job, in one repo you own.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Claude Cowork alternatives](https://opensourceclaudecowork.com/claude-cowork-alternatives)

Open source · Any model, your keys · Self-host, VPC, or on-prem