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OSS vs Enterprise Intelligence Platform

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CopilotKit ships in two layers: an open-source frontend stack (npm packages, no external service required) and an Enterprise Intelligence Platform that adds durable conversations, realtime sync, hosted inspection, and an admin console. Intelligence extends OSS — same SDK, same runtime — so the boundary is about which capabilities you unlock, not which code you write.

The 30-second version

  • OSS is enough for building a working agentic application with framework-native APIs, prebuilt chat, frontend tools, gen-UI, and any AG-UI integration. Apache 2.0, runs anywhere.
  • Enterprise Intelligence Platform adds durable threads, persistence across reloads and devices, realtime WebSocket sync, hosted inspection, and an admin console.
  • Enterprise Intelligence Platform runs two ways — as Cloud-Hosted Enterprise Intelligence, or self-hosted via the copilot-intelligence Helm chart on your own Kubernetes.
  • Your app code doesn't change between OSS-only, cloud-hosted, and self-hosted. The boundary is a runtime config switch.
OSS onlyNeeds Enterprise Intelligence Platform
Agent chat, frontend tools, agent state, gen-UIYes
Any AG-UI integration (LangGraph, Mastra, Built-in, custom)Yes
Conversation history that survives reloads / devicesYes
Frontend thread API + realtime sync across tabs / devicesYes
Hosted inspector, admin console, multi-tenancyYes
Hosted thread inspection and admin consoleYes

What's in the open-source core

Everything you need to build a working agentic app, with no external service from CopilotKit:

<FrontendOnly frontend="react"> - **Frontend SDK** — `@copilotkit/react-core`, exporting hooks and prebuilt components for chat, tools, state, threads, and generative UI. </FrontendOnly> <FrontendOnly frontend="angular"> - **Frontend SDK** — `@copilotkit/angular`, exporting standalone components, signal-based agent and thread APIs, typed tool registration, context, interrupts, and generative UI. </FrontendOnly> - **Runtime** — `@copilotkit/runtime`, the request handler that mounts in your application server. Framework-agnostic core plus thin adapters for Express, Hono, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers. - **AG-UI protocol** — open standard for agent ↔ frontend communication. 16 standardized event types, transport-agnostic. - **Built-in Agent** — `BuiltInAgent` runs an in-process agent loop (OpenAI / Anthropic / Google / any AI-SDK model) without requiring an external framework. - **Integrations** — first-party adapters for LangGraph (Python / TypeScript / FastAPI), Mastra, CrewAI, Pydantic AI, Microsoft Agent Framework, AWS Strands, Google ADK, and others. - **Generative UI primitives** — tool rendering, state rendering, headless APIs, and framework-native theming.

Apache 2.0 licensed. Run it on any host, in any cloud, with any LLM provider.

What's in the Enterprise Intelligence Platform

A separate backend service that sits beside your runtime and unlocks the capabilities that need durable, multi-tenant infrastructure to be honest about:

  • Threads & Persistence — durable, resumable conversations that survive page reloads, span devices, and sync in realtime via WebSocket. Backed by Postgres + Redis with single-writer locks on active runs.
  • Inspection & history — project-scoped thread history, event timelines, admin views, and API key management in the hosted web app.
  • Inspector & Admin Console — a hosted web UI for browsing thread history, inspecting agent traces, rotating API keys, and managing projects and organizations.
  • Multi-tenancy — three-level isolation (organizations, projects, users) so a single deployment can host production and staging side by side without one reading the other's data.

Cloud-Hosted vs Self-Hosted

Same Enterprise Intelligence Platform — you pick where it runs:

  • Cloud-Hosted Enterprise Intelligence is the hosted service. Sign up, get an API key, point your runtime at it. Pick this when you want zero ops on the platform side.
  • Self-Hosted installs the copilot-intelligence Helm chart into your own Kubernetes cluster. Pick this for data residency, on-prem requirements, or compliance control. You operate the workload (Postgres, Redis, ingress, OIDC, secret rotation); the chart and the same Enterprise Intelligence Platform image power the install.

Application code doesn't change between cloud-hosted and self-hosted — same frontend SDK and runtime APIs. Only the platform endpoint and credential set change.

Where the boundary lives

The OSS runtime knows how to talk to the Enterprise Intelligence Platform but doesn't require it.

If your app keeps state in your own backend (Postgres, your own auth) and you're fine reconstructing thread context from your own store, OSS may be enough. The moment you want CopilotKit to be the conversation persistence layer — across users, devices, and sessions — the Enterprise Intelligence Platform is the right answer.

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