# Perplexity Computer for teams: the open-source system you can govern

> Perplexity Computer is a hosted agent sold inside a personal Perplexity subscription, with no self-hosting and no organization-level governance. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System a team can own: self-hosted, with permissions, approval gates, and an audit trail.

URL: https://opensourceperplexitycomputer.com/perplexity-computer-for-teams

## Finished work a team can review

Three examples of an agent's output, each held for a person to approve.

### Sales: Writes the reply and holds the send.

The agent drafts the outbound reply from the account notes and stops at the send step until a person approves.

Output: `outbound/globex-reply.eml`

- Send step: Ask
- Recipient: verified
- Draft: ready

Held for one approval.

### Operations: Builds the weekly report from your tools.

The agent pulls the numbers into a sheet, compares them to the week before, and returns a report a person can read.

Output: `ops/northwind-weekly.xlsx`

| Metric | Last week | This week |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open tickets | 128 | 96 |
| Close time | 3.4d | 2.9d |

One trend flagged.

### Engineering: Fixes the bug and opens a change request.

The agent reproduces the error on its own machine, patches it, and proposes the change for review.

Output: `fix-globex-token.diff`

```diff
app/auth/token.ts
-if (expired(token)) {
+if (isExpired(token, clock)) {
}
```

+1 −1

A person merges it.

## Can a team use Perplexity Computer?
Perplexity Computer is Perplexity's agentic platform: an orchestrated system that draws on many models to research, plan, and execute multi-step work in a managed cloud sandbox. Perplexity sells it inside a Pro or Max subscription, and the subscription belongs to one person. The settings live in Perplexity's product rather than in a repo the company owns, and Portable Computer, the local variant, runs the same closed runtime on hardware you buy.

## What changes when a team is the buyer
An individual can point Perplexity Computer at a task and judge the result. A company has to answer five questions first: who owns the data the agent touches, who approves an action before it happens, who can read the record afterward, where the sessions run, and how a new person gets access. Perplexity Computer answers the data-ownership question for one subscriber and leaves the rest to the team. Its own material describes a single-person subscription, with no self-hosting, no company-wide permissions, no team approval gate, and no sign-on for an organization.

## What an open-source AI Operating System adds
Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, and it answers those team questions. Your agents, skills, company memory, and connectors live in one git repo you own, so the configuration has an owner and a history. Kortix adds per-resource permissions for people and agents, with roles, groups, and an audit trail. Secrets are encrypted at rest with a key per project, and connector credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine. Approval gates you set, off until you set them, hold a tool call until a person decides.

## Who approves, and where it runs
Session work reaches main through a change request, and merge is default-deny for agents, so a person reviews the diff before it lands. Every action is recorded, and reading the audit log depends on the plan. SAML 2.0 single sign-on and SCIM 2.0 cover access, and you run the whole platform on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. Self-host is free, and the [self-hosting guide](/self-hosting) walks through the install. You can start in the browser at [Kortix](https://kortix.com), read the [Kortix vs Perplexity Computer](/kortix-vs-perplexity-computer) comparison, or see [the open-source alternatives](/alternatives).

## Kortix and Perplexity Computer for a team

What a company can own and govern, against a per-person subscription.

| | Kortix (recommended) | Perplexity Computer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Yes. Read it, fork it, audit it. | No. Closed and hosted. |
| Self-host | Yes. Self-host is free. | No. Closed and hosted. |
| Who owns the configuration | You. Files in a git repo you own. | Perplexity. Settings live in their product. |
| Permissions | Per-resource permissions for people and agents. | Per-person subscription; no org permissions. |
| Approval / review gate | Approval gates you set. Off until you set them. | Cloud escalation is user-gated; no team gate. |
| Audit trail | Every action is recorded. Reading the log depends on the plan. | No team audit log; a per-person product. |
| SSO | SAML 2.0 single sign-on and SCIM 2.0. | No team single sign-on. |
| Where it runs | Kortix Cloud, your VPC, or on-prem. | Perplexity's managed cloud sandbox. |

Perplexity Computer cells come from builder.io and vellum.ai, checked October 2026. Kortix cells come from kortix.com and its docs.

## The governance facts, in Kortix's own words

`kortix docs`

```
Connector credentials are brokered server-side and never enter the machine.
A secret can be egress-enforced. The sandbox holds a handle. Kortix substitutes the real value outside the sandbox, only on approved HTTPS hosts.
Environment is the default exposure. Egress-enforced is experimental.
Every action is recorded in the audit log. The log keeps 90 days of events live, and the archive keeps them up to 365 days.
```

Source: https://kortix.com/docs

Permission, secret, and audit facts from the Kortix docs.

_FAQ_

## Questions a team asks

### Can a Kortix instance run fully offline?

No. Self-host pulls its images from docker.io, and sessions run on a cloud sandbox provider rather than on the server you install. The instance stays reachable so those sandboxes can call back. Self-host is free, and the [self-hosting guide](/self-hosting) lists the requirements.

### Does Kortix have single sign-on for a team?

Yes. SAML 2.0 single sign-on and SCIM 2.0, with per-resource permissions for people and agents. Roles, groups, and an audit trail cover the organization, and reading the audit log depends on the plan.

### Can I set an approval gate on one tool?

Yes. Approval gates you set, off until you set them. Set each tool to Allow, Ask or Block. An Ask holds the call until a person approves it, and the agent's turn pauses and then resumes.

### Where does a Kortix session run?

Each session gets its own cloud computer: one isolated sandbox per session, on its own branch. With self-hosting, sessions still run on a cloud sandbox provider rather than on your server, and the instance must be reachable so the sandbox can call back.

## Run a team of agents from one repo you own.

Open source, self-hosted, with the permissions, gates, and identity a company needs.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Self-hosting](https://opensourceperplexitycomputer.com/self-hosting)

Open source · Any model, your keys · Self-host, VPC, or on-prem