A free, open-source Manus alternative you can self-host

How Manus bills, and what "free" really means

Manus runs on credits. Its Flex announcement says a task spends Manus credits for the services and infrastructure it uses, and that model inference is billed by the provider once you bring your own key (Manus Flex). Plan names and credit amounts sit on the Manus pricing page, and they change, so read them there (checked October 2026). Free credits inside a hosted product are a way to try that product; they are not code you run and keep.

A free self-hosted agent is a different offer. You install it, connect a model you pay for, and the configuration lives on your machines. Kortix, OpenManus and AgenticSeek each take that shape, and that is the difference a generic "free Manus alternative" list blurs.

The three free paths, and who each fits

Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System. It is free to self-host. Free is $0 with 200 credits per month and 1 project (Kortix pricing page, checked October 2026). It fits a team that wants finished work with a person reviewing it: agents run on self-host or Kortix Cloud, the configuration sits in one git repo you own, and every session ends as a change request.

OpenManus fits a developer who wants a general agent framework to build on. It is a Python project you clone and run, you set the provider and model in config.toml, and it starts a browser tool as a default MCP server (OpenManus). The framework is free; you pay the model provider you configure.

AgenticSeek fits a person who wants the work to stay on their own hardware. It runs local reasoning models, browses the web and writes code without sending data to a cloud, and it needs a GPU able to run a 14B model (AgenticSeek). There is no subscription, and the cost is your own electricity and hardware.

Manus still fits a team that wants a hosted product with no setup. It manages the model, the harness and the infrastructure, so a team can skip the setup work.

What open source gives a team

Open source means the code can be read, forked and audited, and the configuration can live in a repo you control. That matters most for the two questions a buyer asks first: where the data sits and who can change how the agent behaves. A self-hosted option answers both, because the files are yours and the model call goes to a provider you chose. If you are still weighing the whole field, the Manus alternatives page maps it, and the Manus pricing page covers what Manus charges.