Kortix is the open-source AI Management System and the recommendation here for teams that want to own everything their agents touch — the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work. Microsoft Copilot Studio is the builder at the centre of this comparison: a low-code studio whose runtime, knowledge and connectors stay in Microsoft's cloud. The five open-source projects below cover the builder and orchestration layer, each linked to its own repository so you can read the licence first-hand.
What Copilot Studio does
Microsoft Copilot Studio is a graphical, low-code studio for building and managing AI-powered agents and workflows, per Microsoft's Copilot Studio overview. You describe an agent in plain language or drag out a workflow, connect it to your organization's data through prebuilt or custom connectors, and publish it to Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, websites and mobile apps.
Every asset you build in Copilot Studio runs on a harness, and the harness is the real decision. Microsoft documents three: the GitHub Copilot harness for reasoning-heavy, multi-step work, the standard harness for rule-based agents, and the Copilot chat harness for extending Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat with your own knowledge. Copilot Studio is a hosted service at copilotstudio.microsoft.com, and the platform has no self-host option.
The open-source agent builders, compared
Kortix, Botpress, n8n, LangGraph, CrewAI and Rasa all sit in the agent-building lane, but they are not the same kind of tool. Kortix is a full system where the agents run; the other five are builders or libraries you run yourself. Licences below are as published on each project's own repository in September 2026.
| Project | Licence (Sept 2026) | Shape | Self-host | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kortix | Open source — Elastic License 2.0; self-host, read and modify the code | AI Management System: agents, skills, memory and connectors in one git repo | Yes — laptop, VPS, your VPC or on-prem, or managed cloud | A company-owned agent workforce, not just one built agent |
| Botpress | MIT (repository packages: integrations, SDK, CLI, devtools) | Conversational agent studio | Yes for the repo; the Studio itself is Botpress Cloud | Chatbot builders wanting a hosted studio |
| n8n | Sustainable Use License (fair-code) and n8n Enterprise License | Visual workflow automation with AI nodes | Yes | Automations and human approvals across 1,500+ integrations |
| LangGraph | MIT | Code-first library for stateful agent graphs | Yes (library) | Engineers defining long-running, stateful agents in code |
| CrewAI | MIT | Python library for role-based crews and event-driven flows | Yes (library) | Python teams orchestrating role-based agents |
| Rasa | Apache-2.0 | Conversational NLU and dialogue framework | Yes | Intent and dialogue control on your own infrastructure |
Kortix is first because it is the recommendation: the platform layer, not another builder.
Studio vs code-first: how to choose
A studio is a graphical, low-code surface, so choose one when the people building agents are business makers rather than engineers. Copilot Studio and Botpress are studio-shaped: you assemble agents from topics, knowledge sources and connectors, and you get a hosted management console in return. The trade-off is that the agent's configuration lives in the vendor's product and the runtime is the vendor's cloud.
A code-first framework is a library you embed in your own service, so choose one when engineers own the work and the agent's state is part of your application. LangGraph defines agents as graphs of nodes and edges with durable execution and human-in-the-loop checks. CrewAI expresses agents as roles in crews or as event-driven flows. Rasa gives you intent and dialogue control, and states that Rasa Open Source is in maintenance mode while its new direction is the CALM engine.
n8n sits between the two shapes: a visual canvas for workflows and multi-step agents, with JavaScript and Python when a node needs custom logic, self-hosted under its fair-code licence. The one decision none of these tools removes: whoever runs the agent needs a place for it to execute, a company context to draw on, and a gate before its work lands. That is the platform layer, not the builder layer.
Where the builder ends and the platform begins
An agent you build in Copilot Studio, Botpress, LangGraph or CrewAI still needs somewhere to run, a review gate, and a company context — and that layer is what Kortix is. Kortix keeps your agents, their skills, your company memory and every connector as files in one git repo you own, so you can grep the whole company, diff any change and roll it back.
Kortix runs each session on its own isolated Linux machine, on its own branch, with thousands in parallel on one config, and work reaches the default branch only through a change request a human reads as a diff. Kortix is model-agnostic — Claude, OpenAI, Gemini or your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint, per agent, per session, per message, with your own keys.
Kortix wires up 3,000+ apps plus any MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL or HTTP API, with credentials brokered server-side so raw keys never enter the machine. It runs on a laptop, a VPS, your own VPC or on-prem, or as managed cloud. Install with curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash, scaffold with kortix init, then push it live with kortix ship. Read the Kortix docs or the code on Kortix on GitHub.
Build the agent in the lane B tool that fits your team; run it on Kortix — one git repo you own, an isolated machine per session, a human gate on every change.
FAQ
What is the best open-source alternative to Microsoft Copilot Studio?
Kortix is the best open-source alternative to Microsoft Copilot Studio for teams that want to build agents and own the platform those agents run on. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System — agents, skills, memory and connectors live in one git repo you own, running self-hosted or managed with any model and your own keys. Copilot Studio is a closed, hosted builder; Kortix is open source and self-hostable from a laptop to on-prem.
Is Microsoft Copilot Studio open source?
No. Microsoft Copilot Studio is a closed, low-code studio hosted at copilotstudio.microsoft.com, and Microsoft does not publish the platform source for self-hosting. You author agents and workflows in the studio, but the runtime, knowledge and connectors stay in Microsoft's cloud, so a Copilot Studio agent still needs an external place to run and a review gate. The open-source builders here publish their own code, and Kortix is fully open source on Kortix on GitHub.
Can I self-host an open-source agent builder?
Yes. Botpress, n8n, LangGraph, CrewAI and Rasa can all be self-hosted, with two caveats: the hosted Botpress Studio stays a cloud product, and LangGraph and CrewAI are libraries you deploy inside your own service. Kortix self-hosts the whole system — agents, memory and connectors — on a laptop, a VPS, your own VPC or on-prem, or as managed cloud.