Our team at SmythOS made a decision that surprised the industry. We open-sourced our agent platform’s core. Not a limited version or trial, but the actual runtime powering our entire system.
Understanding why this matters requires understanding what’s at stake in the emerging agent economy.
Our Strategic Open Source Decision
We released our agent runtime (SRE) under the MIT license. This represents the most permissive open source license available. We also made our visual IDE free for anyone building public agents.
Alexander De Ridder, our co-founder, describes it as “a fight for all humanity.” The statement sounds dramatic until you consider the implications. The infrastructure being built will handle trillions of daily transactions for agents. Should three companies control this entire system?
Open Source Matters More for Agent Infrastructure
The world is moving toward agents building other agents. Frameworks are evolving to support multi-agent coordination and autonomous workflows. When this becomes standard, whoever controls infrastructure controls economic participation.
Remember the browser wars. Internet Explorer nearly destroyed web innovation by controlling internet access methods. Now imagine that control level applied to every economic transaction.
The inequality amplifier represents real danger. If only large companies can afford proper agent infrastructure, small businesses and individual developers are excluded. In an agent-driven economy, exclusion means economic irrelevance.
Open source provides critical advantages:
- Security through transparency: When agents handle sensitive data or financial decisions, verification becomes essential. Our GitHub repository allows complete code auditing. Every security boundary, every data flow, every decision point remains visible.
- No vendor lock-in: Build on our platform today, and if migration becomes necessary tomorrow, the code remains yours. Infrastructure ownership persists forever.
- Innovation accessibility: Solo developers have access to the same tools as enterprises. Weekend projects use the same architecture as Fortune 500 deployments.
Impact Across Different User Groups
Solo Developers benefit immediately. Download our SRE at just 50MB, build locally, deploy anywhere. Zero starting cost. No credit card required. Access the same architecture powering enterprise deployments.
Customer reviews on G2 highlight how developers appreciate our approach: “SmythOS makes building AI agents feel effortless and efficient. What stands out is how you can go from an idea to a fully functional agent in minutes.”
Startups can focus on unique agent capabilities rather than rebuilding infrastructure. Multi-agent orchestration, state management, and security are built-in. Scale from free public agents to our $39 monthly Builder plan for private deployments.
Enterprises gain complete control. Run entirely within existing infrastructure. Audit every code line. Integrate with current security tools. Maintain control regardless of corporate changes. Our Startup plan at $399/month includes team features and priority support.
Network Effects and Open Standards
Our platform supports both Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol. We’re building for cross-platform agent communication requirements.
Interoperability between different agent frameworks becomes increasingly crucial as multi-agent systems expand. Email works because SMTP represents an open standard. Agents face the same interoperability requirement.
Companies creating proprietary agent standards will fail. Not because open source holds moral superiority, but because network effects favor open systems.
The Real Cost of Closed Infrastructure
Consider what happens when proprietary platforms dominate the market. Every agent interaction requires permission. Every innovation needs approval. Every deployment pays rent to gatekeepers.
Market analysis indicates the AI agent market will reach unprecedented scale by 2028. If closed platforms control this infrastructure, economic participation becomes a privilege rather than a right.
Our open source approach ensures equal access. Anyone can build, deploy, and scale agents. Innovation happens at the edges, not just in corporate research labs. Small businesses compete on merit, not infrastructure budgets.
Building the Open Agent Future Together
SmythOS now supports over 28,413 agents, built by a community of more than 20,000 developers. This isn’t theoretical infrastructure. It’s proven technology running production workloads today.
The choice between open and closed infrastructure determines who participates in the agent economy. We’ve made our choice clear: open source under MIT license, transparent development on GitHub, and community-driven evolution.
Every developer building on our platform strengthens the open alternative. Every company that chooses transparent systems votes for accountability. Every contribution adds momentum to keeping the agent economy accessible.
Join our open infrastructure movement. Star our SmythOS repository on GitHub to support transparent agent development. Download SRE and deploy your first agent in minutes.
Run SmythOS Studio (Alpha) for self-hosted deployments where you control the infrastructure.Join our Discord community where developers actively shape the open agent economy. The infrastructure being built today powers tomorrow’s economy. Help ensure it remains open for everyone.