Research · GitHub snapshot Oct 22, 2026

Open-source AI agents in 2026, by the numbers

We pulled public GitHub data for 18 of the most-used open-source AI agents: personal agents like OpenClaw and Hermes, desktop workspaces, coding agents and browser agents. Here's who has the attention, who ships, and how they're licensed. The full dataset is free to download and reuse with attribution.

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Key findings

43%

of all 1.5M stars belong to two projects, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent.

18 of 18

use a permissive license: 10 MIT and 8 Apache 2.0. None is copyleft.

6 of 7

personal agents were created in or after July 2025. The category is barely a year old.

6

releases in 90 days for the median project. 14 of 18 shipped one in the last two weeks.

GitHub stars

Stars measure attention, not usage. Still, the gap is striking: OpenClaw alone has 392.7K, while the sixth-largest, Cline, has 70.7K.

GitHub stars per project, 2026-10-22
  • OpenClaw392.7K
  • Hermes Agent256.1K
  • OpenCode219.9K
  • Browser Use118.8K
  • OpenHands91.5K
  • Cline70.7K
  • Goose55.5K
  • Aider49.7K
  • Nanobot49.3K
  • Jan45K
  • UI-TARS Desktop39.4K
  • ZeroClaw33K
  • NanoClaw31K
  • Eigent15.6K
  • Agent S12.7K
  • Osaurus8.1K
  • Open Claude Cowork4.3K
  • CoWork OS496

Releases in the last 90 days

Most of these projects ship constantly. 3 published no GitHub release in the 90 days before the snapshot: Open Claude Cowork (no GitHub releases), Aider (last release Aug 9, 2025), Agent S (last release Dec 16, 2025). Some projects version through tags or package registries instead, so treat zero as "no GitHub release", not "abandoned".

GitHub releases published in the 90 days before 2026-10-22
  • Cline134
  • Osaurus49
  • OpenClaw42
  • OpenCode35
  • OpenHands30
  • Hermes Agent21
  • Goose12
  • NanoClaw8
  • Browser Use7
  • CoWork OS5
  • Eigent4
  • ZeroClaw3
  • Jan3
  • Nanobot2
  • UI-TARS Desktop1
  • Open Claude Cowork0
  • Aider0
  • Agent S0

Personal agents are a 2025–26 category

Most coding and browser agents in this list date from 2023 to early 2025. Personal agents, the kind you message from WhatsApp or Telegram and leave running, arrived in a rush: the repositories of 6 of the 7 in this dataset were created in or after July 2025, led by Hermes Agent (July 2025) and OpenClaw (November 2025), then a wave of lighter alternatives in early 2026 (NanoClaw, Nanobot, ZeroClaw). Goose, from 2024, is the exception.

14 of 18 projects document a way to run a local or self-hosted model, which makes local inference a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator. See running an agent with Ollama.

Security at scale: OpenClaw's own numbers

Popularity brings scrutiny. OpenClaw publishes its security work openly: its security page reported 1,799 reports filed since January 2026, 722 fixed and published advisories, and 14 confirmed critical issues, all fixed and disclosed (as reviewed in September 2026). Its skill registry, ClawHub, now scans every upload with VirusTotal and other tools. That level of disclosure is a useful benchmark for the rest of the category. More in Is OpenClaw safe?

The full dataset

ProjectCategoryLicenseLanguageCreatedStarsForksContributors*Releases (90 days)Latest releaseLocal models
OpenClawPersonal agentMITTypeScript2025-11-24392,72982,552381422026-10-21Yes
Hermes AgentPersonal agentMITPython2025-07-22256,10855,888400212026-10-21Custom endpoint
OpenCodeCoding agentMITTypeScript2025-04-30219,94229,388454352026-10-16Not stated
Browser UseBrowser and computer useMITPython2024-10-31118,83713,19936072026-10-15Yes (Ollama)
OpenHandsCoding agentMITTypeScript2024-03-1391,54712,152461302026-10-22Any LLM
ClineCoding agentApache-2.0TypeScript2024-07-0670,7107,7233411342026-10-17Yes (Ollama, LM Studio)
GoosePersonal agentApache-2.0Rust2024-08-2355,5226,418452122026-10-16Yes (Ollama)
AiderCoding agentApache-2.0Python2023-05-0949,6905,09717202025-08-09Yes
NanobotPersonal agentMITPython2026-02-0149,2678,66439222026-09-15Yes (Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio)
JanDesktop workspaceApache-2.0Rust2023-08-1745,0373,10716132026-10-20Yes (llama.cpp)
UI-TARS DesktopBrowser and computer useApache-2.0TypeScript2025-01-1939,3663,9924912026-10-08Self-hosted model
ZeroClawPersonal agentApache-2.0Rust2026-02-1333,0234,98542032026-10-18Not stated
NanoClawPersonal agentMITTypeScript2026-01-3130,98012,72512982026-10-20Yes (Ollama add-on)
EigentDesktop workspaceApache-2.0TypeScript2025-07-2915,6351,8757442026-10-16Yes, self-hosted mode
Agent SBrowser and computer useApache-2.0Python2024-10-0912,6921,4822702025-12-16Not stated
OsaurusDesktop workspaceMITSwift2025-08-178,06748336492026-10-20Yes (MLX)
Open Claude CoworkDesktop workspaceMITJavaScript2026-01-134,29770130—No (Claude only)
CoWork OSPersonal agentMITTypeScript2026-01-24496901552026-10-18Yes (Ollama, MLX)

*GitHub's contributors API lists at most 500 accounts and leaves out anonymous contributors, so large projects are undercounted.

Methodology

  • Data comes from the GitHub REST API on Oct 22, 2026. Stars, forks and licenses are as GitHub reports them; Jan's license is taken from its README because GitHub can't detect it.
  • "Releases in 90 days" counts published, non-draft GitHub releases. Projects that version only through tags or package registries show fewer.
  • Interface and local-model columns come from each project's own README or docs. "Not stated" means the README didn't say, not that the feature is missing.
  • We left out commit counts. A "commits since" count follows committer dates, which rebases and history rewrites reset, so it isn't comparable across repositories.
  • Projects were chosen as widely used open-source agents people run directly; agent frameworks such as LangGraph and CrewAI are excluded. The list includes CoWork OS, which publishes this report.
  • Every value shown is in the CSV and JSON downloads, and all of it can be reproduced from public GitHub API endpoints.

Use this data

The dataset is licensed CC BY 4.0. You can reuse the numbers and charts in articles or comparisons; please credit and link to this page:

CoWork OS, "Open-source AI agents in 2026, by the numbers" (GitHub snapshot 2026-10-22), https://coworkosapp.com/research/open-source-ai-agents-2026/

Looking for picks rather than numbers? Read the best open-source AI agents in 2026.