Stringers
GitHub open-source project · written 11-6
CopilotKit/openmuse · CopilotKit

Two weeks after a big-tech launch, an "open-source version": how OpenMuse got 6,000 stars, and whether you can copy it

What it is A self-hostable "open-source Meta Muse": a personal agent template with browser, terminal, files, and Gmail, running on phone and web.

Why it took off It launched while Meta Muse was at peak buzz. The CEO quoted and reposted Meta's announcement tweet, and the company account, big accounts, and SEO articles amplified it, catching the demand for "I want a self-hosted Muse".

BHow you could follow suit Stop building Muse clones. When the next big-tech agent launches, use an existing base to ship an "Open + product name" within 7 to 14 days, offer something the big-tech version lacks, quote the official launch tweet directly, and post a Show HN and Reddit thread at the same time.

Grade B: the trick does work for stars. nanoMuse, with no company behind it, still got over 3,000 stars. But the Muse wave has already passed, and every big-tech launch spawns a dozen Open-X projects. Speed and distribution, which decide the outcome, are mostly out of reach for solo devs. Public / widely discussed
Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-09-15 · 6,291 stars · 7 days +265
GitHub · stars
2k4k6k09-2810-1610-2410-3111-086.3k
Data 2026-09-28 → 2026-11-08 (42 days, 32 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

Meta launched the personal agent Muse on Sep 8. Two weeks later, CopilotKit published an open-source repo called OpenMuse, which reached 6,212 stars within a month and a half. It had no feature that others didn't have. The stars came from three things: timing, the name, and a company's distribution. Solo devs can copy about half of this, as explained below.

The Sep 22 quote tweet

In 2026 Sep 22, CopilotKit CEO Atai Barkai posted "Introducing OpenMuse" on X. Instead of a standalone post, he directly quoted @Muse's own launch video tweet. Meta Muse had been live for two weeks: CNBC reported about 13 days after launch that downloads hit 2.5M, TechCrunch said it jumped to #2 on the US iOS overall chart, the first Hacker News post had 666 points and 742 comments, and over the following weeks 0-day, shared-link leaks, and permission overreach came out.

On the same day, the CopilotKit official account posted (608 likes, 78k views). Co-founder Uli Barkai replied, the DevRel team posted too, and big account 0xMarioNawfal put out a video post (57k views). X turned it into a trending topic titled "CopilotKit Launches OpenMuse Open-Source AI Assistant," and the summary's first line reads "Launched amid Meta's closed-source Muse." The CEO's post shows about 5.8K likes and 1.1M views. The numbers sit right after the quote block, so they may have been counted toward Meta's original post (unverified).

The day after launch it had only 890 stars (explainx.ai, 9-23). By Sep 28 it had reached 2,775 stars.

What it actually is

A self-hostable personal agent app template, MIT licensed. The agent has its own browser and an optional Linux terminal, can read and write files, check Gmail, and edit your calendar, with results shown as cards in the chat. At any time you can hit "Take control" and take over the browser it's using. Runs on iOS, Android, and web. The first line of the README says "Compatible with any agent harness," meaning you can swap the model and the underlying agent.

The README is candid: this is "Alpha, for self-hosting and building on." What's been verified and what's on the roadmap are split into two separate docs. Compared to Meta Muse, the pitch is simple: Muse is closed-source, runs on Meta's servers, only uses Meta's models, and is only open in the US and Canada. OpenMuse's code, data, and models are in your own hands.

How the stars came

TimelineStarsSource
9-23890explainx.ai coverage
9-282,775web archive
10-094,338GitHub
11-066,212(897 fork)GitHub

The first 6 days added about 2,700 stars, then October averaged 30 to 130 stars a day, with the biggest day at 10-11 (+136). The last 7 days added +327, and the 7 days before that added +442, so it's cooling. Forks are 14% of stars, higher than newer repos of similar size (about 11%), which fits the "clone and modify" template positioning.

After the launch-day X posts, a long tail of coverage followed: CopilotKit put up a landing page at copilotkit.ai/openmuse, then published a comparison piece, openbot-vs-muse, in Oct 23, targeting the search term "open source version of Meta Muse." explainx, daily.dev, Medium, LinkedIn, and several YouTube videos (titles nearly all "OpenMuse: Open Source Alternative to Meta Muse") followed suit. On Reddit, r/BestGitHubRepos had a post noting "(6.0k stars)," and on r/SideProject someone forked it into their own project, Beli. The README includes a Render one-click deploy button and a 38-second iPhone demo video, so people can try it without cloning the repo.

This isn't the first time, it's a pipeline

CopilotKit has shipped several "Open + big-company product name" projects this year:

  • OpenTag, targeting Claude Tag (June, 1,302 stars)
  • OpenBot, targeting Grok Bot / Claude Duet (August, 10,240 stars)
  • OpenMuse, targeting Meta Muse (September, 6,212 stars)
  • OpenDots, targeting OpenAI Dots (late September, 6,424 stars)
  • OpenDuet (October, 1,962 stars)

The official blog says it plainly: "we open-sourced our own versions of the big AI coworker products." A cofounder on X put it more bluntly: these products are "essentially UX variations on top of similar core functionality," meaning different interfaces on the same core. CopilotKit's SDK and the AG-UI protocol (17k stars) already exist, so each new one only means swapping the interface layer, which is how they ship in two weeks.

The README also shows where the stars go. The first quickstart step is npx copilotkit@latest login, which requires a CopilotKit Intelligence key. A line at the top reads "Building on OpenMuse? Meet with the CopilotKit team," and October's blog points people to the enterprise version, OpenBot for Business. For CopilotKit, the stars turn into developer sign-ups and enterprise sales leads. It's a company that raised a 27M-dollar Series A in May 2026, with a main repo at 38.5k stars, and it has official accounts, founder accounts, DevRel, and a content team. Followers don't have these.

Who it's competing with

ProjectStarsNotes
nanoMuse3,255It was created the same day as OpenMuse. The earliest version was also called OpenMuse (the old repo OpenMuseAgent/OpenMuse was created 9-22, and now reads "archive of OpenMuse 0.1.0–0.6.0"), and it was later renamed. Its focus is all devices, treating the phone screen as the agent's hands. 10-07 posted it on Show HN (68 points).
diggerhq/openmuse51It used the same name 5 days before CopilotKit, also posted on Show HN, and didn't take off.
Comma, Xiryn, noodle, lorca, Mojito, and others120–474Their descriptions all say "open-source alternative to Muse / Dots / Grok Bot"
OpenClaw394kA ready-to-use personal assistant. Meta admits Muse was "heavily inspired" by it
Hermes Agent261kGeneral-purpose agent framework

The first two rows matter most. The name grab didn't help much: diggerhq had the name openmuse 5 days earlier and has only 51 stars. But it's not only companies that can pull it off: nanoMuse shows no big-company backing, has 3,255 stars, and gained +371 in the last 7 days, with growth already close to OpenMuse's. It does the part OpenMuse didn't, leading with "all devices" and "phone screen as hands."

The whole "open-source alternative to big-company agents" space is already crowded: nearly every time a big company launches an agent, more than a dozen Open-X repos appear on GitHub within a week.

If it were you

B: Worth trying, but you need to pick the next big-company launch, and move fast. This move does earn stars, but the Muse wave has already passed, and the distribution that decides outcomes is probably something you don't have.

Who it suits: people who already have a reusable base (their own agent framework, a mobile shell, generative UI components) and can ship a working thing within a week; better still if you already have a few thousand followers on X or Reddit and have posted things people reshared.

Who it doesn't suit: anyone wanting to build "an open-source Muse" now (nanoMuse and OpenMuse have already split that name's traffic); anyone starting agents from scratch who needs a month to get a demo (the window is only one to two weeks after launch); anyone who only wants to ride the name (diggerhq's 51 stars answer that).

How to do it: don't chase Muse, wait for the next one. Watch big-company consumer agent launches (Meta, OpenAI, Google, xAI, Anthropic), and start the day they launch. Within 7 to 14 days, ship "Open + product name" or a name that clearly explains its relationship to the product. Build something the big company's version doesn't have: self-hosting and model swapping are table stakes, so pick one more thing on top, like nanoMuse's all-devices approach, local-language support if the big company only opens in the US and Canada, or Android first if the big company is locked to iOS. Write the README the way OpenMuse did: a 30 to 40 second demo video and a one-click deploy button at the top, with "works today" and "roadmap" kept separate.

How to get users: the launch post should directly quote the big company's official announcement, timed for the days when HN and X are most heated. Post Show HN and r/LocalLLaMA and r/selfhosted at the same time, and prepare an "X vs your project" comparison to catch "open source alternative to X" searches. The first week's stars determine whether anyone writes about you afterward.

Deadline: day 14 after the next big-company agent launch. After that, the space already has CopilotKit and a dozen small projects.

Signs you misjudged it: ① CopilotKit's next Open-X launch gets fewer than 1,000 stars a month later, meaning the tactic itself is failing and readers are tired of it; ② projects like nanoMuse with no company behind them drop to single-digit daily gains within a month, while OpenMuse holds in double digits, meaning those without channels only catch the first few days; ③ the big company open-sources or ships its own self-hosted version, and the "open source alternative" reason disappears.

Data and sources

  • GitHub repo and README: github.com/CopilotKit/openmuse (stars and forks as of 11-06; the 9-28 figure comes from the web archive). nanoMuse and OpenMuseAgent/OpenMuse repo info comes from GitHub search (11-06).
  • X: Atai Barkai's launch post, the X trending topic page, @CopilotKit, and @RoundtableSpace's post. Figures are as displayed on the page.
  • Meta Muse: CNBC (9-21), TechCrunch (9-10, 9-22), Hacker News.
  • CopilotKit: the official landing page and blog (openbot-vs-muse, 10-23), Series A (official blog, GeekWire).
  • Coverage: explainx.ai (9-23), Reddit r/BestGitHubRepos, r/SideProject.

GitHub repo ↗

Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
Competitors
NameWhereLaunchedScaleHow it differs from this one
Meta MuseBig-company features2026-09-08About 13 days to 2.5M downloads (CNBC), #2 on the US App Store overall chartMuse is closed-source hosted, locked to its model, and only open in the US and Canada. OpenMuse is a self-hosted MIT template, with swappable models and harnesses, but it's alpha and aimed at developers
OpenClawOpen source2025-11394K starsOpenClaw is a ready-to-use personal assistant (the source of Muse's inspiration). OpenMuse is an app template with a mobile UI
Hermes AgentOpen source2025-07261K starsHermes is a general-purpose agent framework. OpenMuse is the front-end and app shell, and can plug into any harness
nanoMuseOpen source2026-09-233,254 stars, +7 in 371 daysAlso riding Muse's buzz, but focused on all devices and treating the phone screen as the target. No company channels behind it
Comma / Xiryn / noodle and other small "Muse alternative" projectsOpen source2026-09 to October120–474 starsSame positioning, but without brand or distribution, an order of magnitude smaller
browser-use / cua / OpenHands / SunaOpen source2024–202520k to 120k starsThese are the low-level layers for computer and browser control, not consumer personal assistant apps
Where users come from
  • Verified Riding a big-company launch (X): CEO Atai Barkai 9-22 quote-posted Muse's official announcement to launch OpenMuse, and X turned it into a trending topic, "CopilotKit Launches OpenMuse"
  • Verified Company account network: the @CopilotKit official account (608 likes, 78K views), cofounder @ulidabess, and DevRel @samjulien all posted the same day
  • Verified Big-account reshare: @RoundtableSpace (0 xMarioNawfal) posted a video tweet the same day, 57K views
  • Verified SEO and content: the copilotkit.ai/openmuse landing page, the blog/openbot-vs-muse comparison post, plus third-party articles and videos on explainx, Medium, LinkedIn, and YouTube
  • Inferred Reddit: posts on r/aicuriosity, r/BestGitHubRepos, and r/SideProject. Whether the "We open-sourced OpenMuse" posts on r/LocalLLaMA and r/FlutterDev came from the official team is unverified
  • Verified One-click deploy and demo video: the README has a Deploy to Render button and iPhone and desktop demo videos

Why CopilotKit/openmuse (OpenMuse) took off

In one line: OpenMuse is an open-source take on Meta's Muse, built by CopilotKit (an agent frontend SDK company that makes the AG-UI protocol and raised a Series A). Meta launched Muse 9-08, and two weeks later, 9-22, CopilotKit shipped its version right as the Muse buzz peaked. The CEO quote-tweeted Meta's launch post, and the company, affiliated accounts, and content channels kept riding the wave for over a month. It's not a standalone product that grew on its own. It's one piece of CopilotKit's pipeline for capturing demand: whenever a big company ships an agent, they ship an open-source version within two weeks, and it funnels into CopilotKit Intelligence signups and sales for the enterprise product OpenBot for Business.

1. Data

  • GitHub: 2026-09-15 created the repo, 9-22 made it public. 11-06 it has 6,212 stars and 897 forks (our github repo); the GitHub API read 6,262 / 915 that day.
  • Star curve (our github repo repo_day): 9-28 has 2,775 (wayback backfill), 10-09 has 4,338,10-15, 5,000,11-06 has 6,212. The day after launch, when explainx covered it, it had only 890 stars (explainx.ai, 9-23).
    • The first 6 days (9-22 to 9-28) added about 2,700 stars, the breakout phase. October still gained 30–130 stars a day, with a peak of +136 on 10-11. Last 7 days: +327; the 7 days before that: +442. It's cooling off.
    • The fork-to-star ratio is 14%, above the median for new repos of similar age and size (about 11%). That fits its positioning: it's a template people clone and modify. No suspect flag.
  • It never made GitHub trending. A repo under 60 days old can't make it onto trending anyway, so this tells us nothing. The README embeds a Trendshift badge.
  • In our HN database, none of the top 30 posts with 'muse' in the title since September is OpenMuse. What's hot on HN is Meta Muse itself, along with its security and privacy scandals. On Product Hunt it sits under the CopilotKit product page's Launches (per search result snippets); we found no standalone big launch.

2. Competitors

CompetitorsWhereLaunchedScaleHow it differs from OpenMuse
Meta MuseiOS/Android/web/Mac, big-company product2026-09-08About 13 days after launch, 2.5M downloads (CNBC 9-21); #2 on the US App Store overall chart (TechCrunch 9-10); HN launch post 666 points, 742 commentsClosed source, hosted on Meta's VMs, runs only the Muse Spark model, and is open only in the US and Canada. OpenMuse is a self-hosted MIT template that lets you swap in any model and harness, but it's alpha and you have to deploy it yourself. It isn't built for the general public.
OpenClawOpen source2025-11394k stars (our github repo)A ready-to-use personal assistant that plugs into WhatsApp/iMessage. Meta admitted Muse was 'heavily inspired by OpenClaw' (TechCrunch 9-22). OpenMuse is a developer template; its strengths are mobile UI and generative UI cards.
Hermes Agent(NousResearch)Open source2025-07261k stars, 7 days +2,377A general-purpose agent framework. OpenMuse is a 'front end plus app shell' that claims it can wrap any harness.
nanoMuseOpen source2026-09-233,254 stars, +371 in 7 days; Show HN 68 points (10-07)A same-name project that showed up a day later, riding the hype: all-device, with the phone screen as the remote. Its growth now is about on par with OpenMuse.
Comma (AFK-surf), Xiryn, noodle, lorca, Mojito, and othersOpen source2026-09 to October120–474 starsAll of them put 'open-source alternative to Muse / Dots / Grok Bot' in their descriptions, using the same playbook, but with no company or distribution behind them. They're an order of magnitude smaller.
diggerhq/openmuseOpen source2026-09-1051 starsIt took the same name 5 days earlier and even posted a Show HN (Trendshift page), but it didn't take off. Grabbing the name first didn't help; distribution was the key.
browser-use, trycua/cua, OpenHands, Suna, Agent-S, bytebotOpen source2024–202511k to 120k starsInfrastructure for browser and computer-control agents, not personal assistant apps.

Takeaway: The space is extremely crowded. Almost every big-company agent launch spawns a batch of 'Open-X' open-source alternatives. OpenMuse wins on launch timing and distribution, not on unique features.

3. Growth tactics (evidence)

  1. Riding the big-company launch (core). Meta launched Muse 9-08, downloads quickly topped a million, and HN kept up a steady stream of complaints and discussion. 9-22, CopilotKit CEO Atai Barkai posted 'Introducing OpenMuse', directly quoting @Muse's launch video tweet (x.com/ataiiam/status/2102400431519592581). X turned it into a trending topic, 'CopilotKit Launches OpenMuse Open-Source AI Assistant', with the summary 'Launched amid Meta's closed-source Muse' (x.com/i/trending/2102491789349302513).
    • The post showed about 296 replies, 633 reposts, 5.8K likes, and 1.1M views. The figures sit below the quoted block, so they may include the quoted tweet's data; not verified.
  2. Company accounts relay the post. The same day, the @CopilotKit account posted (608 likes, 78K views). Co-founder Uli Barkai (@ulidabess) replied that Muse, GrokBot, and OpenTag are 'essentially UX variations on the same core, we're the UX layer'. DevRel Sam Julien (@samjulien) posted (about 2.8K views).
  3. Big accounts repost. 0xMarioNawfal (@RoundtableSpace) posted a video tweet that day, with 181 likes and 57K views. The same trending page also carried a TechCrunch post saying Muse copied OpenClaw, so the topic traffic stacked.
  4. Long-tail content and SEO. Coverage appeared on explainx.ai, aitoolsreview.co.uk, hermes-ai.net, daily.dev, Medium (coding-nexus), LinkedIn (Julian Goldie SEO, Karan Checker), YouTube (several 'OpenMuse: Open Source Alternative to Meta Muse' videos), and Facebook video pages.
    • CopilotKit has a landing page at copilotkit.ai/openmuse. 10-23 also published a comparison post, blog/openbot-vs-muse (formerly soar-vs-muse), aimed squarely at the search term 'open source version of Meta Muse'.
  5. Reddit. r/aicuriosity ran a launch post; r/BestGitHubRepos has a '(6.0k stars)' post; r/AISEOInsider and r/singularity have discussions about alternatives; on r/SideProject someone built Beli on top of OpenMuse. r/LocalLLaMA and r/FlutterDev have 'We open-sourced OpenMuse' posts, but the pages were blocked by 403, and whether the authors are CopilotKit is unverified.
  6. Lowering the trial barrier. The README has a one-click Deploy to Render button and a demo video, and it runs on iOS, Android, and web.
  7. Where the money comes back.
    • The first step of the quickstart is npx copilotkit@latest login, which gets you a CPK_INTELLIGENCE_API_KEY and asks you to keep your CPK_TELEMETRY_ID. The README says verbatim: 'Runtime usage cannot be attributed to the Intelligence signup account', meaning this ID is how usage gets attributed to your signup account.
    • The top of the README has a 'Building on OpenMuse? Meet with the CopilotKit team' sales entry point. The CEO replied under the post: 'We're helping companies build products like this one.'
    • October's blog points OpenMuse users to the enterprise edition, OpenBot for Business, delivered by forward deployed engineers.
    • So the stars and forks turn into developer sign-ups and enterprise sales leads.

4. Why it charted

  • Timing: Meta Muse was the biggest consumer agent launch of September, with 2.5M downloads, and HN kept surfacing 0-day exploits, leaked share links, and permission overreach. The need for 'a Muse I can self-host, where my data doesn't go to Meta' was directly ignited. OpenMuse shipped within two weeks, and on launch day it also landed in the middle of TechCrunch's 'Muse copies OpenClaw' story.
  • The playbook was copied, not a coincidence. CopilotKit has put out several 'Open-X' projects in a row over 2026 years:
    • OpenTag targets Claude Tag (6-26,1,302 stars)
    • OpenBot targets Grok Bot / Claude Duet (8-17,10,240 stars, +2,247 in 7 days)
    • OpenMuse targets Meta Muse (9-15,6,212 stars)
    • OpenDots targets OpenAI Dots (9-29,6,424 stars)
    • OpenDuet (10-21,1,962 stars)
    • Its official blog says it outright: 'we open-sourced our own versions of the big AI coworker products'.
  • Reused foundation, so it ships fast. In the co-founder's words, these products are 'essentially UX variations on top of similar core functionality'. The CopilotKit SDK, AG-UI (17k stars), and CopilotKit Intelligence are all off the shelf, so each new template just swaps out a UX layer.
  • Company resources: CopilotKit closed a 27M Series A (official blog / GeekWire) and has 2026-05 years in the market; its main repo has 38.5k stars, and the org totals about 76k. It has a company account, founder accounts, DevRel, and a content team, so one launch can hit X, the blog, SEO landing pages, Reddit, and YouTube all at once.
  • Polished product: it has a mobile client, a demo video, and one-click deploy, and the README clearly separates 'verified' from 'roadmap' (explainx specifically praised this). That makes it more credible than the typical side project in this space.

5. Differentiation

  • Compared with Meta Muse: open source under MIT, self-hosted, swappable models and harnesses, and your data stays with you. That's why it got reposted, and it's the whole point of the 'open-source version of Muse' positioning.
  • Compared with other open-source Muse alternatives: there's no unique feature (browser, terminal, files, and Gmail are everywhere). The real differences are two things:
    • It's a 'front end / app template' with native mobile apps, generative UI cards, and browser takeover;
    • It has a company and distribution behind it.
  • Did the differentiation drive its success? The 'open-source Muse' positioning was a factor, but anyone can claim that positioning (diggerhq took the name 5 days earlier and got only 51 stars; nanoMuse came a day later with 3,254 stars). What decided it was CopilotKit's shipping speed, distribution matrix, and brand backing, not product features.

6. How many people have seen it

  • It's already been widely discussed: there's an official X trending topic, big accounts reposted it, and a batch of third-party reviews, SEO articles, and YouTube videos followed.
  • But it isn't a paid business in itself. There's no public revenue, and it won't show up on TrustMRR. It's a customer-acquisition tool for CopilotKit.

7. Copycats

  • Same name or same positioning: nanoMuse (3.2K stars), diggerhq/openmuse, AFK-surf/Comma, Xiryn, noodle, lorca, Mojito, Anil-matcha/open-duet, MausBot, Bloks.
  • Built on top of it: Beli on r/SideProject, and another 'I built Open Muse' post.
  • The whole category of 'open-source alternatives to big-company agents' is already crowded.

8. What others can learn

  1. Chasing big-company launches with open-source alternatives. When a big company launches a consumer agent, a 'self-hosted version' demand window opens. Ship in 1–2 weeks on an existing foundation, name it 'Open + the big company's product name', quote the big company's launch tweet from the CEO's account, and follow up with an SEO landing page and a comparison post.
  2. An open-source template as an acquisition funnel. The quickstart forces login to the company's cloud service and an API key, attributes usage to the signup account via a telemetry ID, puts a 'talk to the engineers' entry point at the top of the README, and hands enterprise deals to FDEs.
  3. One base, repeated new skins: treat every big-company launch as a free traffic event.
  4. Make the README clear: separate "verified / roadmap", include a demo video and a one-click deploy button to raise trust and fork rate.

9. Uncertain

  • Stargazer details can't be pulled (the GitHub stargazers API returns 404 / empty for this repo), so we can't check the daily breakout from 9-22 to 9-28 or look for star-farming accounts. The fork ratio is normal and there's no suspect flag, so it doesn't look faked.
  • Whether the 1.1M views on Atai's tweet are his own data is unverified.
  • How many stars actually turned into CopilotKit Intelligence signups and enterprise deals is not public.
  • Whether the r/LocalLLaMA and r/FlutterDev posts were official is unverified.

Sources

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.