Don’t want to hand your AI assistant to a big lab? Rakazo is a self-hosted, bring-your-own-model “AI teammate” that actually drives a computer

What this project actually does

Rakazo is an open-source Grok Bot alternative — in plain terms, an "AI teammate" you actually own. It ships web, desktop (Electron), and mobile clients, and its core pitch is Bring Your Own AI + Bring Your Own Sandbox: you pick the model yourself (via OpenRouter, or by signing in with ChatGPT, Copilot, or SuperGrok), and you pick where it runs (Docker or E2B). Each bot gets its own conversation thread, its own "computer," memory, routines, and history. The wilder part is that a bot can spawn more bots, each a peer with its own thread and computer, or run short-lived subagents inside the current turn. Crucially, the entire core product can run fully self-hosted with no Rakazo-operated control plane.

Why it is blowing up right now

"Computer-use agents" are one of the hottest directions in AI right now, but Grok Bot and ChatGPT's agent mode are locked behind big-lab closed services. Rakazo's edge is exactly "open-source + self-hosted + bring-your-own model and sandbox" — you don't worry about your data landing in some lab's hands, and you are not chained to one model. It was built with Cursor and Grok 4.6, and its author elie222 is also behind the well-known open-source project Inbox Zero, which brought a wave of built-in trust. That is why it passed 450 stars in days.

Technical highlights

The most addictive feature is the computer pane: a live Linux desktop with a browser. You can "take control" at any moment to sign into a site yourself, and once you let go the bot remembers that session and picks up where you left off. Sandbox providers are flexible:

• docker (default): one per-bot container on your machine, good isolation, persistent bot homes — great for single-machine self-hosting.
• e2b: a remote sandbox with stronger separation for public or multi-user deployments, needs E2B_API_KEY.
• desktop: runs directly on the host, least isolation, only for a trusted single-user local process.
• fake: an in-process emulator for tests only.

The stack is modern too: TypeScript, React 19, Vite, Tailwind, Electron, Expo, Hono, oRPC, Postgres, Prisma, Better Auth, Graphile Worker, Pi, with Composio to let plugins talk to real apps. Bots can hand work to each other or spin subagents for "don't-leave-a-trace" short tasks.

Who it is for

If you care about privacy and don't want to hand an account-touching AI to a big lab, Rakazo is close to the most complete open-source answer today; self-hosting developers can stand up the whole thing in one go; teams needing programmable agents can wire Composio into real business systems. It fits people who think "I want AI to click web pages, fill forms, and run flows for me, but the code and data must stay on my own machine."

Quick start

From the repo root: cp .env.example .env, set BETTER_AUTH_SECRET and ENCRYPTION_KEY (placeholder values work for local dev), then docker compose -f infra/compose/docker-compose.yml up postgres -d && pnpm install && pnpm db:generate && pnpm db:migrate && pnpm sandbox:build && pnpm dev. pnpm dev starts the API (:3100), Graphile Worker, the web app (:5173), and the sandbox supervisor (:7091). Open :5173, sign up, pick a model, create a bot, send a message — the computer pane is that live Linux desktop.

Computer and app modes, separated

One detail worth understanding: the app you open (web, Electron, or mobile) and the computer provider are separate choices. The web and Electron clients hit the same API; Docker stays the default sandbox. In the Electron app you get asked once whether bots should keep using Docker or run on "This Mac," and macOS won't even prompt for permission because the consent is Rakazo's. For public or shared deployments, E2B is the safer boundary because untrusted users never touch your host.

Testing and trust

Rakazo ships a verify:fast command that pins fake emulators so the default tests never call live models or external services — a sign the author cares about reproducible behavior, not just demos. The health endpoint reports which runtime, sandbox, and wakeup driver are active, so you can confirm your self-hosted setup is wired correctly before trusting it with real accounts.

Why trust the author

elie222 is the person behind Inbox Zero, a well-known open-source email tool, so the project arrives with prior credibility in the self-hosted community. That matters for a tool that, by design, can touch your accounts.

How it compares to rivals

Against Grok Bot (closed xAI), ChatGPT's agent, Manus, and AutoGPT, Rakazo's killer feature is openness and control: bring-your-own model (no vendor lock-in), bring-your-own sandbox (you decide where data lands), no official control plane (truly self-hosted), and multi-client coverage (web/desktop/mobile). I'd say its arrival drags the "computer-driving AI assistant" out of the big labs' black boxes and back into users' own hands.