Is Claude Cowork free?

No. Claude Cowork is included only with paid Claude plans, and Anthropic’s product page lists it on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise.

Can I self-host Claude Cowork?

No. Sessions run on Anthropic’s servers and live with your Claude account, and the product page offers an Anthropic account or your own cloud provider (Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry), not a self-hosted edition (Anthropic’s help center).

What is an open-source alternative to Claude Cowork?

Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: agents, skills, memory, and connectors in one git repo you own, with each session on its own cloud computer and a change request gate a person merges. Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on-prem, and self-host is free.

Does open source mean it is free to run?

The software is free to read, fork, and self-host, and Kortix self-host is free. The model provider still bills unless you run a local model, so the running cost is the model you choose.

Is Claude Cowork open source? No, and here is the open-source alternative

Claude Cowork is not open source. Anthropic publishes the product and its help center but not the code behind it, and a Cowork session runs in the cloud on Anthropic’s servers. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: agents, skills, memory, and connectors in one git repo you own.

Try Kortix

§ 01Quickstart

How a Kortix agent’s work reaches main

FIG 1project treeTEXT

project (git repo + kortix.yaml)  -> session: one agent, its own isolated machine and branch  -> the agent commits and pushes  -> change request -> a person merges -> main

Sourcekortix.com/docs

The project, session and change-request model, from the Kortix docs.

Is Claude Cowork open source?

No. Claude Cowork is a closed product from Anthropic. 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. The product page describes what Cowork does; neither page links a public repository or a self-hosted download. Anthropic documents the product, not the code behind it.

The name is also easy to trip over. Claude Cowork and Claude Code share an agentic approach, and Claude Code runs in a terminal, but neither is published as source you can read, fork, and audit. If you need to see how the agent works and run it yourself, the answer is a different product.

What changes when the agent is open source

An open-source agent changes four things. You can read, fork, and audit the code. You can run it on your own hardware. You choose the model and bring your own key. And the configuration lives in files you own rather than in a vendor’s account.

Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and it is built this way. Your agents, their skills, your company memory, and every connector live in one git repo you own. 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, and self-host is free. The code is public at Kortix on GitHub with 20,000+ stars (checked October 2026), and Read the docs for the full model.

The open-source Cowork alternatives, briefly

Kortix is the platform option, for a team that needs governed sessions and one repo. Two free, open-source Cowork desktops cover the single-person case: OpenWork, a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux that runs on OpenCode (openworklabs.com), and Eigent, a multi-agent desktop you can run locally or self-host (eigent.ai). The Claude Cowork alternatives page measures all three against the closed product.

How to check any open-source agent claim

Any project can write "open source" on its landing page, so check four things:

Is the whole product in the public repository, or only a client that calls a closed server?
Can you self-host the runtime, not only run a desktop app on your own machine?
Can you connect your own model key, or does the provider come bundled?
Does the configuration live in files you control, or in an account on someone else’s system?

Each yes moves the tool toward something you own. Each no marks the part you still rent.

§ 03FAQ

Questions about Claude Cowork and open source

Q01 Is Claude Cowork free?: No. Claude Cowork is included only with paid Claude plans, and Anthropic’s product page lists it on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise.
Q02 Can I self-host Claude Cowork?: No. Sessions run on Anthropic’s servers and live with your Claude account, and the product page offers an Anthropic account or your own cloud provider (Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry), not a self-hosted edition (Anthropic’s help center).
Q03 What is an open-source alternative to Claude Cowork?: Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: agents, skills, memory, and connectors in one git repo you own, with each session on its own cloud computer and a change request gate a person merges. Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on-prem, and self-host is free.
Q04 Does open source mean it is free to run?: The software is free to read, fork, and self-host, and Kortix self-host is free. The model provider still bills unless you run a local model, so the running cost is the model you choose.

Own the agent, not just a seat in the vendor’s app

Self-host for free, or start on Kortix Cloud and move the same configuration to your own box.

Try Kortix Read the self-hosting guide

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