What is Open Source AI?

What it is: Open source AI means the AI is free for anyone to download, look at, change, and share. Closed source AI is locked up inside one company.
Who it’s for: Beginners trying to understand the difference between AI tools
Best if: You’ve heard ‘open source’ and ‘closed source’ but aren’t sure why it matters
Skip if: You already know the difference and just need specs

Think of it like a recipe. A closed-source recipe stays secret inside a restaurant. You can eat the food, but you can’t see how it was made. A open-source recipe is printed in a book. Anyone can read it, cook it at home, change it, or share it with a friend.

AI works the same way. With closed-source AI like ChatGPT or Claude, you use the tool but you don’t see the recipe. With open-source AI, you can download the whole thing, run it on your own computer, and change how it works.

Why it matters

• Cost: Open source is usually free to use.
• Privacy: You can run it on your own computer. Your questions never leave.
• Control: You can change how it works.
• Trust: Anyone can check the code for problems.

Examples

• Open source AI: Meta’s Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek, Qwen
• Closed source AI: ChatGPT (from OpenAI), Claude (from Anthropic), Gemini (from Google)

You might also hear the words “open weights.” That means the company shared the finished AI brain but not the full recipe for how they built it. It’s like sharing the cake but not the recipe.

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