OpenManus, answered: what it is, what it costs, and the open-source system a team runs instead
OpenManus is a free Python framework for building general AI agents, and Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System a team runs when it needs the framework and the system around it. What OpenManus is, whether it is free and maintained, and what a team runs instead each have a short answer with a source.
One decision sits behind the OpenManus questions
The questions people bring to OpenManus differ, and the decision behind them is one: do you assemble and run the framework yourself, or run the same agents inside a system your team owns. A framework gives you the agent code and leaves the surrounding system to you. A platform hands you that system already built, with the agents, their skills, the company memory and the connectors in a repo the team controls.
OpenManus is a framework for building agents
OpenManus is a Python framework for building general AI agents, and its own site says so (openmanus.github.io). It stays active: 58,662 stars and a last push on 2026-09-30 (checked October 2026, GitHub). It is a strong place to learn how agents are built, and it stops short of the surrounding system a team needs once agents do real work.
What sits around the framework
Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: your agents, skills, company memory, and connectors in one git repo you own. Each session runs on its own isolated sandbox and branch, and work reaches main only through a change request a person approves (Kortix docs). The head-to-head is on the Kortix vs OpenManus page, and the wider field is on the OpenManus alternatives page.
How the system around the agents fits together
The parts a framework leaves to you, and where they live in Kortix.
- One repo
Agents, skills, memory and connectors are files
A project is a git repo with
kortix.yamlat its root. Agents, skills, memory and connectors are files in it.one repo "One repo is the company: agents, skills, memory, connectors and triggers are files, versioned and reviewed like code.""You can grep your entire company."Source: https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna - One session
Each session gets its own isolated sandbox and branch
One isolated sandbox per session. Each session has its own isolated machine and branch.
session A session runs one agent in its own sandbox.The sandbox clones the repo and works on a new branch.The branch name is the session_id, a UUID with no prefix.Source: https://kortix.com/docs - One review
A person approves the change before it reaches main
Session work reaches
mainthrough a change request. Merge is default-deny for agents.review "Merge is default-deny for agents: you review the diff.""Work reaches main only through a change request you approve, so the company self-improves one reviewed change at a time."Source: https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna
OpenManus questions, answered
OpenManus is a Python framework for building general AI agents, released by contributors from MetaGPT. Its own project site describes it as an open-source framework for building AI agents that you can connect to external tools and APIs (openmanus.github.io). It gives you the parts to build agents, and you assemble the product around them yourself.
Yes. OpenManus is open source and its repository is public, and its README presents it as the version you can run without an invite code (GitHub). You run it on your own machine and add your own model keys to a config.toml, so your cost is the model usage and the machine it runs on.
Yes. The repository was last pushed on 2026-09-30 and carries 58,662 stars, and the project also runs OpenManus-RL for tuning agents (checked October 2026, GitHub). It is a community project built by contributors from MetaGPT, so its pace follows those contributors rather than a company selling it as a product (openmanus.github.io).
No, OpenManus is a framework, not a product. Its README walks you through cloning the repository, installing dependencies, adding model keys to config.toml and running main.py (GitHub). The repository documents a framework and no team layer, so a team that adopts it builds the surrounding system itself.
Teams that want the framework plus the system around it use Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System (Kortix docs). In Kortix, your agents, skills, company memory, and connectors live in one git repo you own; every session runs on its own isolated sandbox and branch, and work reaches main only through a change request a person approves. Any model provider with your own keys, on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network.
Choose OpenManus for a Python framework you run and govern yourself (GitHub). Choose Kortix when the work has to belong to a team: the agents, skills, memory and connector rules in one repo the team owns, an isolated sandbox and branch per session, and every change reviewed through a change request a person approves. The head-to-head split is on the Kortix vs OpenManus page.
Run the OpenManus idea on a system your team owns
Open source, any model with your own keys, self-host or Kortix Cloud.
Open source · Any model, your keys · Self-host, VPC, or on-prem