OpenClaw is an open-source personal AI assistant that runs on your own computer and meets you in the chat apps you already use. When one person's assistant has to become a system a whole company owns and governs, the alternative is Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System where every agent, skill, memory file and connector lives in one git repo the company owns.
What OpenClaw is
OpenClaw is an open-source AI assistant you run on your own hardware and reach through the chat apps you already use. Its documentation defines it as a self-hosted gateway: one process on your machine or a server that connects chat apps such as Discord, iMessage, Slack, Teams, Telegram and WhatsApp to AI coding agents. The Gateway is the single source of truth for sessions, routing and channel connections, and you message the assistant the way you message a person.
OpenClaw's installer covers macOS, Linux and Windows, and the project ships native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows and Linux. State, memory and credentials stay on your hardware, and configuration lives in a local file at ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json. Claude, Codex and local models are plugins you can swap without changing anything else.
OpenClaw is MIT-licensed, which lets you use, modify and redistribute the code, and it is stewarded by the OpenClaw Foundation, an independent 501(c)(3), with no paid tier, hosted service or token. Its GitHub README records the licence and the Foundation, which develops the project in the open and lists OpenAI among its donors rather than as an owner.
What OpenClaw is not
One Gateway runs OpenClaw as a personal assistant on a laptop or as a shared team deployment, and its documentation treats configuration as the only difference between the two. A team deployment is the same assistant with more people connected. OpenClaw is a personal and team assistant, not the operating system a company runs on.
A company running many agents across many people asks for things a personal assistant does not provide: shared configuration under version control, roles and per-resource permissions for people and agents, and a human approval gate before an agent's change lands. OpenClaw's own controls are aimed at a different job. It treats inbound messages as untrusted input, runs tools on the host for the main session unless you configure sandboxing, and pairs unknown senders by default on direct-message channels. Those defaults suit one person on one machine and leave a team to assemble the rest itself.
What Kortix is
Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and ChatGPT Work. Agents, skills, company memory, connector configuration and triggers are files in one git repo the company owns, and Kortix on GitHub is where the platform lives. You can grep the whole company, diff any change and roll any part of it back.
Every Kortix session runs on its own isolated Linux machine on its own branch. The agent can install, run and break anything inside that sandbox, and only what it commits survives; thousands of sessions run in parallel without crossover. When the work is ready, the agent opens a change request that a human reads as a diff before it merges to the main branch.
The repo wires up 3,000+ apps plus any MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL or raw HTTP API, with connector credentials brokered server-side so the raw key never enters the machine. Every tool call can be set to allow, ask or block. Models are chosen per agent, per session or per message, so you can bring a key from any provider or point at any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Kortix is open source (Elastic License 2.0): self-host, read and modify the code.
| Platform | Open source | Your configuration | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kortix | Yes (Elastic License 2.0) | Files in one git repo you own | Company agent work with a human review gate |
| OpenClaw | Yes (MIT) | A local file on your machine | A personal assistant reachable in chat |
Which one is right for you
Pick OpenClaw when one person wants an assistant that follows them into every chat app and stays entirely on their own hardware. Its channel coverage and personal scope are the point, and nothing about it asks you to think in seats, projects or a control plane.
Pick Kortix when the work belongs to the company: many people, many agents, shared memory and connectors, configuration a team reviews in git, and a human gate on every change that lands. The full side-by-side is in Kortix vs OpenClaw, and the open-source OpenClaw alternatives guide covers the wider field.
FAQ
Does Kortix replace OpenClaw?
No. OpenClaw is a personal assistant that runs on your own machine and reaches you in chat; Kortix is an open-source AI Operating System for a company's agent work, with shared configuration in one git repo and a human change-request gate on every change. Teams run OpenClaw for personal chat-first tasks and Kortix for governed company work.
What do I need to run OpenClaw?
A supported Node.js runtime (Node 26 is recommended, checked October 2026), an API key from the model provider you choose, and about five minutes. The one-line installer runs on macOS, Linux and Windows and installs Node.js when it is missing.
Is OpenClaw free?
OpenClaw is free to run: it is MIT-licensed and the Foundation offers no paid tier, hosted service or token. Your only cost is the model provider you configure, because OpenClaw sends prompts to the AI provider and chat platforms you connect.
Kortix is free to self-host: run curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash on your own machine, or Try Kortix in the managed cloud.