Open-source alternatives to Microsoft Copilot Studio

What Microsoft Copilot Studio is scoped to

Microsoft Copilot Studio is Microsoft's graphical, low-code studio for building and managing AI agents and workflows, reached as a standalone web app at copilotstudio.microsoft.com. Agents appear where Microsoft's surfaces are: Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Copilot, websites and mobile apps, with more channels beside them. Reach comes through 1,500+ prebuilt connectors and MCP servers. Governance runs on role-based access controls, with audit logs that flow into Microsoft Purview. Billing is consumption-based: credit packs of 25,000 at $200.00 per pack per month, or a pay-as-you-go meter with no upfront commitment, as of October 2026.

| Scope | Copilot Studio's own documentation || --- | --- || What it builds | Agents and workflows in a graphical, low-code studio || Where agents run | A standalone web app at copilotstudio.microsoft.com || Where agents appear | Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Copilot, websites, mobile apps || What they reach | 1,500+ prebuilt connectors and MCP servers || How it is governed | Role-based access controls; audit logs in Microsoft Purview || How it is billed | Credit packs or pay as you go; meter needs Azure |

Every cell in that table comes from Microsoft's Copilot Studio overview and Microsoft's Copilot Studio product page.

Where that scope ends

None of that is a defect inside a Microsoft shop. The scope ends where your stack does. The channels agents surface in are Microsoft's first, the audit trail lands in Microsoft Purview, and the pay-as-you-go meter requires linking an active Azure subscription to the environment. What never moves is where the agent lives: a Microsoft-hosted studio, Microsoft's own channels, Microsoft's audit tooling, and Microsoft's billing infrastructure. A team whose daily work runs on Slack, Jira, Salesforce and GitHub can wire those systems in through the connector catalog, and still runs every agent inside a perimeter it does not own. That is the line an alternative has to cross.

Four questions for any alternative

The comparison table on this page scores each option on four questions. They are worth asking in this order.

1. Where do the agents run? A shared vendor tenant makes the vendor's regions, uptime and audit tooling yours whether you chose them or not. n8n treats self-hosting as the default path: your own infrastructure, on-premises or a private cloud, with n8n Cloud as the managed option (n8n's hosting docs). Dust runs in Dust's cloud with US or EU data residency, and single-tenant deployment on the enterprise plan (Dust's pricing page). Copilot Studio runs where Microsoft hosts it. Kortix gives every session its own isolated sandbox, on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network.

1. What can they reach? Count the prebuilt connectors, then check for MCP and raw API access, because the long tail of your stack lives there. n8n ships hundreds of built-in nodes plus community nodes and an MCP registry (n8n's integrations docs). Dust lists 70+ connectors and any tool via MCP (Dust's site). Copilot Studio covers 1,500+ prebuilt connectors and MCP servers. Kortix reaches 3,000+ apps in a click, plus MCP, OpenAPI, Postman, GraphQL and raw HTTP.

1. How are tool permissions enforced? Tenant roles decide who can edit and run agents. Kortix sets each tool to Allow, Ask or Block, down to the arguments of each call. An approval holds the call; the agent's turn pauses and resumes.

1. Where does finished work land? Decide what the deliverable is: a chat reply, or a reviewed change. Kortix agents land their work as a change request you review and merge, and return finished work along the way: decks, reports, code and replies.

Where Kortix fits

For the team that has outgrown the Microsoft perimeter, Kortix is the recommendation. Agents, skills, company memory and connectors live as files in one git repo you own. Any model provider, with your own keys. Work reaches main only through a change request you approve. Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-host is free. It is open source. Read it, fork it, audit it. (Kortix on GitHub)

n8n stays a strong pick when the job is a fixed flowchart, the same steps in the same order every time. Dust suits teams that want a closed hosted service with residency choices. When the work is open-ended, touches many systems, and should land as reviewed changes, Kortix is the one built for it. The line-by-line head-to-head lives on the Kortix vs Copilot Studio comparison, and the guide to open-source Copilot alternatives covers the wider field.