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AI Tool

Octop

A smarter, self-hosted AI assistant — multi-user, multi-agent.

Visit Octop4.4
  • Rating

    4.4 / 5

  • Pricing

    Free

  • Difficulty

    Advanced

  • Works on

    Web, Cross-Platform

Built with love by Shushant Lakhyani. Building bestproductivityresources.com

What is Octop?

Octop is a self-hosted AI assistant from Tencent Cloud that supports multiple users and multiple agents. Teams can run it on their own infrastructure for private, customizable AI assistance.

Third-party open-source projects. We are not affiliated with their authors; repositories are provided as-is by their maintainers. Review each project's license, code and security before installing. See our Disclaimer.

Pros: what Octop does well

  • Free and open source
  • Self-hosted with multi-user and multi-agent support

Cons: where it falls short

  • Requires self-hosting
  • Ops overhead for small teams

What people use Octop for

  • A private AI assistant for a team or household, with separate accounts for each person
  • A set of specialist agents, each with its own workspace, model provider and persona
  • Chatting with your assistant from a web dashboard or apps such as Telegram, Discord or WeChat
  • Answering questions from your own documents with a built-in knowledge base

How to get started

  1. 1Install it with the one-line installer from the GitHub README, with pip (pip install octop), or download the desktop app from GitHub Releases.
  2. 2Open a new terminal so the octop command is on your path, then start it.
  3. 3Open the web dashboard, connect a model provider and create your first agent.
  4. 4Add users, chat channels and documents once the first agent works.

Octop pricing

Octop is free and open source under the MIT licence. You run it on your own machine or server and pay for any AI model provider you connect. See current prices on Octop's site

Checked 2026-10-13. Prices change, so double-check before you pay.

Octop FAQ: quick answers

Who makes Octop?
Tencent Cloud publishes it as an open-source project on GitHub.
Does Octop keep my data private?
It is self-hosted, so conversations and files stay on your own machine or server. Anything you send to an outside model provider is handled by that provider.
Which systems does Octop run on?
macOS, Linux and Windows, plus a desktop app and a Docker option.

Octop alternatives

Not sold on Octop? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

cumora

Focus: team chat, ai agents and collaboration. Shares multi-agent and open source with Octop. A desktop app, not an AI tool. Adds macOS, Windows and Linux. Rated 4.5 (Octop: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows

CubePlex

Focus: managed agents, team workspace and mcp. Shares self-hosted with Octop. Rated 4.3 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform

Garden Desk

Focus: private ai, on-premise and workspace. Shares self-hosted with Octop. Rated 4.3 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform

Agent Room

Focus: ai agents, mcp and claude code. Shares multi-agent with Octop. Rated 4.2 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform

Claude Code Game Studios

Focus: claude code, game development and ai agents. Shares multi-agent and open source with Octop. Adds macOS, Windows and Linux. Rated 4.8 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreemacOS, Windows

LibreChat

Focus: ai chat, llm and github. Shares self-hosted and open source with Octop. Rated 4.6 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreeWeb, Cross-Platform

Free alternatives to Octop

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

TokenOps

Focus: token governance, budget control and llmops. Shares multi-agent and open source with Octop. Adds Linux, macOS and Windows. Rated 4.6 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform, Linux

mira

Focus: code review, ai and pull requests. Shares self-hosted and open source with Octop. Rated 4.5 (Octop: 4.4).

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform, Web

Relaticle

Focus: crm, mcp and ai agents. Shares self-hosted and open source with Octop. Same 4.4 rating.

AI ToolFreeWeb, Cross-Platform

takt

Focus: ai agents, coordination and human in the loop. Shares multi-agent and open source with Octop. Same 4.4 rating.

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform

Docmost

Focus: wiki, documentation and confluence alternative. Shares self-hosted and open source with Octop. A web app, not an AI tool. Rated 4.7 (Octop: 4.4).

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform

BookStack

Focus: wiki, documentation and github. Shares self-hosted and open source with Octop. A web app, not an AI tool. Rated 4.6 (Octop: 4.4).

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
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