Open Source
Definition
Software whose underlying code is made freely available for anyone to inspect, use, and modify. The idea predates AI by decades and powers much of the internet. In AI the label is used loosely, and often a bit generously: some models share everything, others share only parts and still claim it. Genuinely open AI lets people see how a tool works and run it themselves, rather than taking a company's word for it.
Why It Matters
It's at the heart of who gets to control and inspect AI. The more open a tool is, the more you can verify rather than trust. That distinction matters.
What does that look like in practice?
Anyone can download an open-source tool, look at exactly how it works, and change it, no permission needed.
What people actually mean when they say this
When someone calls AI 'open source,' check what's actually shared. The word is used loosely, and 'open' can mean anything from everything to a little.
Not to be confused with
Last reviewed: June 2026
Related reading
In the Privacy Decoder
- DeepSeekA capable, low-cost Chinese AI assistant, strong at reasoning and coding. It made waves by matching far more expensive models.High
- KimiA Chinese AI assistant from Moonshot AI, known for handling very long documents and for strong coding and research.High
- MiniMaxA Chinese AI company whose models handle text, voice, and video (its Hailuo video tool is widely used). Capable, frontier-quality, and inexpensive.High
- MistralA European AI assistant (Le Chat) and model maker. Handles conversation, writing, summarising, and coding, with open models you can also run yourself.Medium
In the AI Lineup
- GemmaGoogle's free, open model family. The small, downloadable cousin of Gemini, made to run on your own hardware.
- llama.cppThe lean open-source engine that quietly runs AI models on ordinary computers. Powerful, free, and not for the faint-hearted.
- oMLXA newer way to run AI models fast on Apple Silicon Macs, built to make the most of Mac hardware. Mac-only, and still early.
- MLXApple's own open-source framework for running AI on Mac hardware. The foundation, more for builders than for browsers.
See also
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