Onyx
Open-source enterprise AI chat grounded in your company's knowledge
Onyx is a top open-source pick for teams needing secure, self-hosted RAG chat with deep research. Its benchmark wins and $20/user/month Business tier are compelling. However, the free tier is limited, and self-hosting requires DevOps investment. For a fully managed SaaS, consider Glean or Microsoft Copilot.
Verified 5d ago · liveness 72/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/onyx
- Enterprise teams needing secure, self-hosted AI chat grounded in internal knowledge
- Engineering teams wanting a customizable AI platform with API access and open-source code
- Sales and support teams needing instant access to product, customer, and documentation data
- Organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements that prefer on-premise deployment
- Individual users without a team or organizational account
- Teams seeking a fully managed SaaS with no self-hosting option (though cloud is available)
- Users who need mobile native apps (only web and Slack interaction)
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Skip Onyx if you lack DevOps resources for self-hosting or need a fully managed out-of-the-box AI assistant with minimal customization.
Going past the free tier's 5-user limit requires upgrading to Business at $20/user/month, which can get expensive for large teams.
Onyx's Business tier at $20/user/month (annual) is competitive for mid-sized teams, undercutting Glean and Microsoft Copilot's premium pricing while offering similar features. For teams needing self-hosting and full control, it's a bargain compared to enterprise SaaS. However, the free tier is limited, and self-hosting costs additional infrastructure.
In short
Onyx — Open-source enterprise AI chat grounded in your company's knowledge. Best for Enterprise teams needing secure, self-hosted AI chat grounded in internal knowledge, Engineering teams wanting a customizable AI platform with API access and open-source code, Sales and support teams needing instant access to product, customer, and documentation data. Free to start; paid plans from $20/mo.
What's new in Onyx
Checked 5 days agoAcross the latest 4 updates: 4 news mentions.
On The Intrinsic Knowledge Retrieval Scaling Challenge
Study on how corpus scaling affects retrieval recall in semantic and BM25 search.
Are File Systems All You Need? It Depends...
Evaluated hybrid search against file search on up to 510k docs — no outright winner; complexity and user preferences matter.
Benchmarking agentic RAG on workplace questions
Onyx outperformed ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, Notion AI in RAG benchmark on internal and web data.
Lessons from building the best Deep Research (and how you can build better agents)
Behind-the-scenes on #1 Deep Research system; design choices for performant agent systems.
What people actually say about Onyx — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
64 mentions across 4 sources (Hacker News, Product Hunt, App Store, Lemmy) · researched Jul 3, 2026.
- +Open-source with self-hosting option for data sovereignty.
- +Hybrid search and LLM-based knowledge graphs improve answer accuracy.
- +Multi-step deep research and agentic capabilities are ambitious.
- +Slack integration allows bot-per-channel for team collaboration.
- +Supports all major LLM providers, avoiding vendor lock-in.
- −Almost no community discussion exists to validate any claims.
- −Name collision with 5+ unrelated products muddles search results.
- −No real user reviews for reliability, uptime, or performance.
- −Support responsiveness and quality are completely unknown.
- −Learning curve may be steep for teams new to self-hosted RAG.
- • No hidden costs reported because no user feedback exists
- • Self-hosting requires infrastructure and ops effort
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Onyx? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: August 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Open-source enterprise AI chat
- Hybrid search (semantic + BM25)
- Advanced RAG with contextual retrieval
- LLM-based knowledge graphs
- Deep Research (multi-step agentic research)
- Custom AI agents with instructions and knowledge
- Actions via MCP/OpenAPI
- Sandboxed code interpreter
- Web search integration
- Image generation
- Slack integration with per-channel bot
- 40+ app connectors
- Developer APIs for query expansion and agent configs
- Granular RBAC with permission inheritance
- Self-hosted deployment
About Onyx
Onyx is an open-source enterprise AI chat platform that connects your organization's docs, apps, and people to large language models, delivering accurate, cited answers based on internal knowledge. It's built for teams that need reliable, grounded responses over general-purpose AI assistants. The platform combines hybrid search (semantic + BM25), advanced RAG with contextual retrieval, and LLM-based knowledge graphs to ensure high answer accuracy. It also includes deep research, actions via MCP/OpenAPI, a sandboxed code interpreter, web search, image generation, and custom AI agents with instructions and knowledge, all behind granular access controls. Onyx is designed for enterprises and mid-sized teams that prioritize security, customization, and data control. It supports all major LLM providers and offers flexible configuration for retrieval and agent behavior. With 40+ app connectors, including Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, and Notion, it syncs updates in real time while respecting fine-grained permissions. Deployment options include cloud (SaaS) or self-hosted, with SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance. In-house benchmarks show Onyx outperforms ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, and Notion AI on real workplace questions, with win rates of 64%, 68.1%, and 76%, respectively. What sets Onyx apart is its open-source nature, making it transparent, extensible, and deployable on any infrastructure. Developers can access APIs for query expansion, agent behavior configs, and a built-in agent framework. The platform encourages collaboration through chat sharing, user feedback, and usage analytics. Onyx's modular design, fueled by an OSS community, allows for clean interfaces and infinite extensibility. Compared to managed SaaS rivals like Glean or Microsoft Copilot, Onyx offers greater customization and data control, but it comes with a steeper setup curve. If your team has DevOps capacity and wants to avoid vendor lock-in, Onyx is a strong contender. For teams
Behind the Verdict
Onyx stands out in the crowded enterprise AI chat space by being fully open-source, which gives you complete control over your data and deployment. The platform's strong suit is its retrieval accuracy—its own benchmarks show it beating major competitors like ChatGPT Enterprise and Claude Enterprise on real workplace questions, thanks to hybrid search and advanced RAG techniques. You get a wide range of features: deep research, custom agents, MCP/OpenAPI actions, a code interpreter, image generation, and web search, all integrated with 40+ connectors. Where Onyx truly shines is in its flexibility. You can deploy it on your own infrastructure, choose any LLM provider, and customize the agent framework to fit your workflows. The developer APIs let you fine-tune query expansion and agent behavior. This is a huge advantage for enterprises with strict compliance or data sovereignty needs. However, this flexibility comes at a cost: setup and maintenance require DevOps expertise. Self-hosting means you handle infrastructure, scaling, and updates. The free tier is limited to 5 users and 8GB storage, so you'll likely need to upgrade to the Business plan. There's no native mobile app—you interact via web or Slack. Onyx is best for teams that have technical capacity and want to avoid lock-in. If you prefer a fully managed solution with minimal IT involvement, you'd be better off with Glean or Microsoft Copilot. For those willing to invest in setup, Onyx offers unmatched customization and control.
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Onyx actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You need to deploy a secure AI assistant that can answer employee questions based on internal HR policies and IT documentation.
Outcome: You self-host Onyx on your infrastructure, connect it to Confluence and Google Drive, and set up role-based access. Within a day, employees start getting cited answers to policy questions, reducing IT support tickets.
You want to quickly find answers about product features and customer cases to close deals faster.
Outcome: You use Onyx's Slack integration to ask questions directly in your team's Slack channel. Onyx retrieves relevant product docs and past conversations, giving you accurate, cited answers that help you respond to prospects in minutes.
You need to build custom AI agents for different departments with tailored instructions and knowledge.
Outcome: You use Onyx's developer APIs to create agents that can query internal databases and web sources. You configure them with specific instructions, and they run deep research tasks automatically, saving your team hours of manual work.
Use Cases
- Answer employee questions using internal documentation and Slack conversations.
- Summarize long threads and channels to quickly get up to speed on topics.
- Generate code snippets and review writing with access to company codebases.
- Close deals faster by retrieving every conversation and product update instantly.
- Create custom AI agents for different departments with tailored instructions and knowledge.
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-08-19
Limitations
- Onyx is an open-source platform that lets teams leverage any LLM of their choice, with access to all major LLMs on the Business plan.
- Deployment options include cloud-free trial, self-hosted open-source, and enterprise on-premise/region-specific deployments.
- Pricing starts at $20 per user/month (annual billing) for Business, with Enterprise custom pricing.
- Self-hosting requires infrastructure management and DevOps expertise.
- The free tier is limited to 5 users and 8GB storage, and there are no native mobile apps—interaction is primarily via web and Slack.
as of 2026-08-19
Verification history
We have re-verified Onyx 6 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published Onyx tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Free
$0/mo
Ideal for
Small teams or individuals exploring Onyx with under 5 users and minimal storage needs.
What this tier adds
Free entry point with core chat and search, limited to 5 users and 8GB storage.
Business
$20/user/mo (annual billing)
Ideal for
Teams of any size needing advanced features like custom agents, actions, and 40+ connectors at a flat per-user cost.
What this tier adds
Adds custom AI agents, actions, web search, deep research, code interpreter, image generation, Slack integration, and more.
Enterprise
Contact us
Ideal for
Large organizations needing SSO, on-premise deployment, white-labeling, and dedicated support.
What this tier adds
Adds OIDC/SAML SSO, on-premise and region-specific deployments, white-labeling, custom integrations, and volume discounts.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Onyx's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Onyx's Business tier at $20/user/month (annual) is competitive for mid-sized teams, undercutting Glean and Microsoft Copilot's premium pricing while offering similar features. For teams needing self-hosting and full control, it's a bargain compared to enterprise SaaS. However, the free tier is limited, and self-hosting costs additional infrastructure.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Onyx — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
For cloud trial, you can get started in minutes by signing up. For self-hosting, expect a few hours to set up infrastructure and connect your first few apps, with full customization taking days.
Switching to or from Onyx
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From SharePoint or Confluence: Use Onyx's built-in connectors to index your existing documents, then map your permission structure to Onyx's RBAC.
- →From a simple chatbot: Export your FAQ data and upload it as documents, then use Onyx's deep search to handle intents.
- ↗To Glean or Microsoft Copilot: Export your indexed data and permissions, then configure the new tool's connectors to re-index your sources.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
Official links
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Onyx vs Presto Voice
Choose Presto Voice if you operate a QSR drive-thru and want to automate ordering with proven upselling (up to 6% revenue lift). Choose Onyx if you need a secure, open-source AI assistant grounded in your enterprise documents and data. These tools serve entirely different use cases: one for physical voice ordering, the other for knowledge management and research.
Onyx vs Screenplayiq
ScreenplayIQ wins for screenwriters needing market-oriented script analysis with predictive box office stats; Onyx dominates for enterprise teams wanting a customizable, data-sovereign AI search/chat platform grounded in internal knowledge. Your choice depends on whether your priority is script monetization or enterprise knowledge management.
Onyx vs Truleo
Truleo is purpose-built for law enforcement intelligence needs, excelling at connecting siloed data like jail calls and body cameras. Onyx offers a flexible, open-source platform for enterprise knowledge retrieval and deep research, with recent benchmarks showing superior RAG performance. Choose Truleo if you're in law enforcement; choose Onyx for general enterprise AI grounded in internal documents.
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