# Is Microsoft Copilot open source? No, and here is the open-source stack you own instead

Source: https://opensourcecopilotalternative.com/is-copilot-open-source.html
> Microsoft Copilot is proprietary, closed, and licensed per seat; Kortix is the open-source AI Management System you can self-host and modify.

Microsoft Copilot is not open source. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System that teams move to when they want to own the stack. Microsoft licenses Copilot per user, runs it inside its own cloud, and hands you a seat rather than the code. The answer matters beyond a licence checkbox, because "open source" is the practical test for whether you can read the code, run the platform on your own hardware, point it at any model with your own keys, and keep its configuration in a repository you control.

## The short answer, and where the confusion starts

Microsoft Copilot is a proprietary cloud service. Microsoft sells it as an add-on to an eligible Microsoft 365 plan ([Microsoft Copilot licence options](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/microsoft-365-copilot-licensing)), and runs it as a shared service inside the Microsoft 365 service boundary where prompts are grounded through Microsoft Graph and sent to a model Microsoft operates ([Microsoft Copilot architecture](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/microsoft-365-copilot-architecture)). You cannot download Copilot, deploy it in your own VPC, or point Microsoft 365 Copilot at a model endpoint you supply.

GitHub does publish the client-side [Copilot Chat extension for Visual Studio Code](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-copilot-chat) under the MIT licence, and that is where much of the "Copilot is open source" confusion starts. That repository is an editor front end. The Copilot service, its orchestration, its prompts and the models behind it stay with Microsoft. Microsoft also uses the Copilot name across three products, and the [three lanes Microsoft brands as Copilot](/what-is-microsoft-copilot.html) separate a coding assistant, an agent builder and an agent layer.

## What Microsoft licenses you, and what it never hands over

Microsoft Copilot for work is sold per user. Microsoft's enterprise pricing lists it at $30 per user per month, billed yearly, on top of an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription, checked October 2026 ([Microsoft Copilot pricing](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/pricing/enterprise)). Copilot Studio, the agent builder, is sold separately as tenant-wide credit packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 per pack per month, or through a pay-as-you-go meter ([Microsoft Copilot Studio](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/products/copilot-studio)). Both are licences to a service. Neither ships code you can audit.

The configuration lives in Microsoft's tenant. Agents built in Copilot Studio are governed through Power Platform environments, role-based access and audit logs that flow into Microsoft Purview ([Copilot Studio licensing](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/billing-licensing)), and model choice comes from a dropdown of models Microsoft exposes ([select an agent model](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/authoring-select-agent-model)). A Microsoft admin controls who may use the service. Nobody gets the platform as files they can grep, diff and roll back.

## What open source actually gets you for an agent platform

Open source is usually argued as a licence detail. For a platform that runs agents over your company, it is an operational question: can you read the code, host it where your data has to live, and keep every agent definition under version control? Kortix is open source (Elastic License 2.0) — self-host, read and modify the code. The licence covers the whole platform, including the harness and the control plane.

In Kortix, agents, skills, company memory, connector configuration and triggers are files in one git repo you own, so any change is a diff and any part of the company can be rolled back. You choose the model per agent, per session or per message, with your own API keys or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Connector credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine. Every session boots its own isolated Linux machine, so agents can install, run and break things while only what they commit survives. Work reaches the default branch through a change request a human reads as a diff first ([Kortix documentation](https://kortix.com/docs)).

## Microsoft Copilot vs Kortix, side by side

| Dimension | Kortix | Microsoft Copilot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Yes (Elastic License 2.0) | No |
| Licensing | Free to self-host or paid managed cloud | Per-user add-on on an eligible Microsoft 365 plan |
| Where it runs | Self-host, VPC, on-prem, or managed cloud | Microsoft-operated cloud, commercial and sovereign regions |
| Model choice | Any model, your keys and endpoint | From Microsoft's catalog, billed by Microsoft |
| Where your config lives | Files in a git repo you own | Your Microsoft 365 tenant and Power Platform |
| Human gate | A change request a human reads as a diff | Approval checkpoints in Microsoft's tools |
| Connectors | 3,000+ apps plus MCP, OpenAPI, GraphQL, HTTP | 1,500+ Microsoft connectors and MCP servers |

Microsoft's own Copilot Studio page documents the 1,500+ pre-built connectors and MCP servers ([Microsoft Copilot Studio](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/products/copilot-studio)). The Kortix rows describe the open-source platform: one repo you own, any model with your keys, and a human gate on every change.

## Why ownership decides the Copilot question

Closed platforms are becoming the operating system an entire company runs on. Claude Cowork, OpenAI ChatGPT Work and Copilot are all heading for full agent-management systems, and the company that rents one will never own it. Kortix is the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work, and it brings the same ownership answer to the Copilot decision. Microsoft's architecture keeps your prompts, configuration and agent behavior inside the Microsoft 365 boundary, which is fine while Copilot is a drafting assistant and a different matter once agents hold company memory and touch real systems.

Which assistant writes a better email is the wrong comparison. The question is whether the system that accumulates your company's memory is a product you rent or a repository you own. A seat can be turned off. A system that holds the work, the context and the operations cannot be swapped as easily, and the open-source route keeps that system in your hands.

## When Microsoft Copilot is still the right buy

If your company already standardises on Microsoft 365, you want an assistant inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, and you have no appetite to run infrastructure, Copilot does that job and does it without a server to manage. Kortix answers a different question: running a workforce of agents over company files and tools, on hardware you choose, with the configuration in git. If you are replacing the coding assistant rather than the agent layer, the [open-source GitHub Copilot alternatives](/github-copilot-alternatives.html) cover that lane, and the [self-hosting guide](/self-hosting.html) covers the agent platform.

## Start with the stack you own

Kortix is the open-source pick for the team that wants to own its agent platform. One command installs the CLI and scaffolds the repo that becomes the company:

```bash
curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash
kortix init
kortix ship
```

Self-host it for free on a laptop, VPS, your VPC or on-prem, or use managed cloud. Start at [Kortix](https://kortix.com).