Octop
by TencentCloud
Octop is a self-hosted AI assistant that runs as a single process and lets several users each have their own set of specialised AI agents. It is used for chat, scheduled tasks, web automation and team messaging through a web dashboard, command line and chat apps such as Telegram, Discord and WeChat.
- Stars
- 11.2k
- Licence
- MIT
- Runs on
- A small server
- Setup
- Moderate
- Language
- Python
- Age
- 112 days
What you can do with it
- Set up several AI agents with different roles and let team or family members use them through a web dashboard or chat apps
- Schedule recurring tasks in plain language, such as daily reports or reminders sent to a chat channel
- Automate web tasks with a headless browser and ground answers in your own documents using a knowledge base
Make money with it
A freelancer could set up and host private AI assistants with custom agents and knowledge bases for small businesses as a paid setup and support service.
An idea, not financial advice. Check the licence before charging for anything built on it.
Ways a business could use it
- Run a shared internal assistant that answers questions from company documents and routes tasks into team chat apps, reducing paid assistant seats
- Automate routine work such as weekly reports, form filling and scheduled messages to save staff time
Can you use it commercially?
Free to use, change and sell, including in paid products. Keep the copyright notice.
Not legal advice. Read the project's licence file before building a product on it.
Getting it running
It is a Python 3.12+ package published on PyPI and started with the `octop run` command, with data stored under ~/.octop/.
Follow the official instructions in the project README.
Things to check
- Needs API keys for an external AI model provider, which usually cost money
- Many integrations focus on Chinese platforms such as Feishu, DingTalk and WeCom
- Some features, such as AgentTeams, are in beta
- Browser and remote desktop control give the agent wide access, so tool approval settings need care
Who's talking about it
Checked 28 Oct 2026. Summary drafted by AI from the project's README.
