Kortix vs AnythingLLM: the open-source head-to-head

Kortix vs AnythingLLM at a glance

If you want private document chat for yourself or a few trusted colleagues, AnythingLLM does that job well. If you want agents doing real work across your company's tools, with permissions, isolation and reviewed output, we recommend Kortix.

The difference, row by row

KORTIX — session work

Session starts→Own cloud computer, own branch→Agent works across your tools→Change request you review → main

ANYTHINGLLM — chat

Question asked→One app instance answers→Reply appears in the app

What each product is

Kortix is an open-source AI Operating System: agents, their skills, company memory, connectors and triggers live as text in one git repo, and every session runs on its own isolated machine. A project is a repo you can clone, diff and hand to the next person. AnythingLLM, built by Mintplex Labs, is an all-in-one AI app you install: a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, or a Docker server you host. Its core is document chat: you ingest documents into workspaces and talk to them, with agents, scheduled tasks and an on-device meeting assistant around that core.

Open source

Kortix is open source. You can read it, fork it and audit it; the code is public on GitHub with 20,000+ stars as of October 2026 (Kortix on GitHub). AnythingLLM is open source too, under the MIT license, developed by Mintplex Labs in the Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm repository. Its homepage puts the position plainly: "Don't rent intelligence. Own it." Both products let you walk away with the code. What differs is what you own while you run them. For a deeper look at that ownership question, see our guide to open-source AnythingLLM alternatives.

Models

Kortix is model-agnostic at three levels: pick the model per agent, per session or per message. Bring your own API keys, sign in with the ChatGPT subscription you already pay for, or point Kortix at your own models behind your own URL. Anything OpenAI-compatible works. Changing models is a config edit in the repo.

AnythingLLM connects local models, any llama.cpp-compatible model plus Ollama, LM Studio and LocalAI, and cloud providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock. You pick the provider in the app, and its dynamic model routing can switch providers per conversation based on rules you define.

Where agents, context and connectors live

Everything Kortix needs to work is a file in the repo you own. Agents are markdown personas, skills are markdown plus scripts, memory is plain files that accumulate, and kortix.yaml declares the machine image, the connectors and the triggers. Connector reach is wide: 3,000+ apps in a click, plus MCP, OpenAPI, Postman, GraphQL and raw HTTP. You can grep the whole company, diff any change and roll any part of it back.

AnythingLLM holds this state in the app instead. You choose the LLM, embedder and vector database in its settings, agents and their skills are configured through the interface, and workspace context is the documents you ingest, stored on the instance with LanceDB as the default vector database. That is manageable for one installation. It does mean there is no git history of configuration changes to review.

Permissions and governance

Kortix treats governance as part of the design. Per-resource permissions cover people and agents, with roles, groups and an audit trail. Each connector call is allow, ask or block, down to the arguments it was given, and connector credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine. Finished session work reaches main through a change request a person reads as a diff first, and merge is default-deny for agents.

AnythingLLM offers single-user mode, where one person controls the instance, and multi-user mode with user management, workspace access management and password protection, all Docker-version features per its own installation guide. That secures who can reach a workspace. It does not govern how an agent's output lands: chats and agent replies appear in the app rather than arriving as reviewable changes.

Deployment: desktop, Docker, or cloud

Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network, and self-hosting is free. Wherever it runs, each session gets its own isolated machine and branch, so parallel work does not queue behind one shared server.

AnythingLLM ships two ways: a one-click desktop app that keeps everything on your device, or a Docker image you host on any webserver, locally or with cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud or Railway. The Docker deployment is also the only one with multi-user support.

Multi-user and company scope

Kortix is built for a company from the first session. Thousands of sessions run in parallel without touching each other, people and agents are both principals, and Slack and Microsoft Teams bring the system to where people already work.

AnythingLLM runs one user on the desktop app, or several on a Docker instance with user management and workspace access control. The needs that arrive with company scale, per-agent permissions, thousands of isolated parallel sessions and work landing as reviewed changes, are the ones Kortix was designed around.

Who each one is for

Kortix is for a company that wants AI doing real work across its tools: agents that pull lead lists, sweep error logs, chase receipts and close the books, landing each job as a change request a person approves. AnythingLLM is for an individual or a small team that wants a private, local workspace for documents, with agents and scheduled tasks alongside. If document chat is the whole job, AnythingLLM is the smaller, simpler tool. If the job is running real operations, Kortix is the one built for it.

When Kortix is the right pick

Choose Kortix when any of these is true:

• Agents need to act across real tools, with allow, ask or block set per tool call.
• People and agents need per-resource permissions, roles and an audit trail.
• Work must be reviewable: sessions land as change requests you read as a diff.
• You want the system itself in version control: agents, skills, memory and connector config as files.
• You need deployment choice: managed cloud, free self-hosting, your VPC or on-prem.
• Your team already works in Slack or Microsoft Teams, and work should start from there.

Moving an existing setup? Our guide to migrating from AnythingLLM covers what transfers and what has to be rebuilt.

When AnythingLLM is the right pick

AnythingLLM remains a good pick when the job is smaller:

• One person, or a few trusted people, chatting with local documents.
• Local models and on-device privacy, with no cloud dependency.
• A one-click install with no setup.
• A shared Docker instance with multi-user access covers the team.

Frequently asked questions

Is AnythingLLM open source?

Yes. AnythingLLM is MIT licensed, and Mintplex Labs develops it in the public Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm repository. Its own site describes it as fully open source and licensed for organizational use, available as a desktop app or a self-hosted multi-user Docker deployment. You can read, fork and run the code yourself under the MIT terms.

Is Kortix open source?

Yes. Kortix is open source: you can read, fork and audit the code, and self-hosting is free. Agents, skills, memory and connector configuration are plain files in a git repo, so the system you run is the system you can inspect. That ownership, more than any single feature, is why we recommend it for company use.

Can Kortix run the models I already use?

Yes. Kortix works with any model provider on your own API keys, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and it can sign in with the ChatGPT subscription you already pay for. Models you host yourself work too, behind your own URL, as long as they speak the OpenAI-compatible API. You set the model per agent, per session or per message.

Can I self-host Kortix and AnythingLLM?

Yes, both. AnythingLLM runs as a desktop app on your device or as a Docker image on a server you control, with multi-user features requiring the Docker version. Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, on your own on-prem network, or self-hosted for free. The difference is scope: AnythingLLM's self-hosting runs the chat and document instance, while Kortix's self-hosting runs the layer your agents, connectors, memory and work run on.

The short version

AnythingLLM wins the job it was built for: private, local document chat on hardware you control. Kortix wins the job most companies grow into: an open-source AI Operating System that runs agents across real tools, keeps every setting in a git repo you own, and lands finished work as a change request a person approves. If that second job is yours, Try Kortix free, self-hosted or in the cloud. Want the wider field first? Our roundup of the best AnythingLLM alternatives covers the other options, and every AnythingLLM alternative guide on this site follows the same rule: facts from each product's own docs, and a clear recommendation.