OpenMAIC is live · free plan; paid plans on request · last verified 14 Nov 2026 · viability healthy
OpenMAIC
Open-source AI classroom that turns a topic or PDF into a multi-agent lesson with AI teachers, classmates and graded quizzes.
If you want an AI classroom rather than an AI tutor, OpenMAIC is the most complete open option in front of us. The multi-agent scaffolding is real — LangGraph orchestration, AI classmates debating on a shared whiteboard, auto-graded quizzes with knowledge-gap feedback, 28+ action types — and .pptx export keeps the output out of a chat window. The costs are just as concrete: Docker or Vercel deployment plus Node.js and pnpm setup, your own provider keys paying every generation, and AGPL-3.0 shaping commercial use. Compare it with closed tutors such as Khanmigo or Synthesis Tutor only if you are willing to trade their hosted convenience for source control.
Verdict generatedVerified 7h ago · liveness 70/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/openmaic
- Developers and research groups who want a self-hosted AI teaching platform with full source control
- Educators building flipped classrooms that need discussion and debate, not just video
- Researchers studying multi-agent orchestration in educational settings
- Self-learners comfortable running Node.js and holding their own LLM API keys
- Non-technical users who want a hosted, sign-up-and-go product with no Node.js, pnpm or API key setup
- Learners who want simple one-on-one tutoring without AI classmates or classroom dynamics
- Teams planning closed-source commercial use without negotiating a separate license (AGPL-3.0)
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Skip OpenMAIC if you want to teach tomorrow without touching a terminal or an API key — it needs Node.js 20+, pnpm 10+ and your own provider credentials before the first lesson generates.
Every lesson generation bills against your own provider account, so a 40-scene course with quizzes, simulations and TTS can add real LLM spend on top of the $0 license.
The AGPL-3.0 source is free to self-host; your real spend is LLM tokens on your own provider account plus Docker or Vercel hosting. For a small research lab that compares favourably with per-seat closed tutoring subscriptions once you have several learners, but a single casual learner will spend less on a flat-rate hosted tutor than on generation calls.
In short
OpenMAIC — Open-source AI classroom that turns a topic or PDF into a multi-agent lesson with AI teachers, classmates and graded quizzes. Best for Developers and research groups who want a self-hosted AI teaching platform with full source control, Educators building flipped classrooms that need discussion and debate, not just video, Researchers studying multi-agent orchestration in educational settings. Free to start; it also has paid plans whose price we could not confirm — see the pricing table.
What is OpenMAIC?
OpenMAIC — Open-source AI classroom that turns a topic or PDF into a multi-agent lesson with AI teachers, classmates and graded quizzes. Best for Developers and research groups who want a self-hosted AI teaching platform with full source control, Educators building flipped classrooms that need discussion and debate, not just video, Researchers studying multi-agent orchestration in educational settings. Free to start; it also has paid plans whose price we could not confirm — see the pricing table.
OpenMAIC (Open Multi-Agent Interactive Classroom) is an open-source platform from the THU-MAIC team at Tsinghua University that generates a full interactive lesson from a single topic sentence or an uploaded PDF. Instead of a static video, you get AI teachers with distinct teaching styles, AI teaching assistants, and AI classmates who discuss and debate alongside you. Generation runs in two stages: your input becomes a structured lesson outline, then each outline item becomes a scene — a narrated slide lecture with spotlight and laser-pointer effects, an auto-graded single-choice, multiple-choice or short-answer quiz with knowledge-gap feedback, a browser-based HTML simulation such as a physics simulator or algorithm visualization, or a Project-Based Learning activity with student roles, milestones and deliverables. AI agents draw equations, flowcharts and diagrams on a shared whiteboard, and TTS narration plus ASR voice input keep sessions hands-free. Interaction modes cover Classroom Discussion, Roundtable Debate and free-form Q&A. Under the hood it is a Next.js, React, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS app with LangGraph driving the multi-agent state machine and an action engine handling 28+ action types. You bring your own model provider: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek or any OpenAI-compatible API. The documented default is Gemini 3 Flash, with Gemini 3.1 Pro for highest-quality output, and since OpenAI began rolling out GPT-6 Astra in September 2026, self-hosters can add that as a provider too for stronger agent reasoning. MinerU parses documents, and lessons export to editable .pptx or interactive HTML. Deploy via Docker, Vercel or your own infrastructure under AGPL-3.0, with commercial licensing negotiated separately with the team. This is a builder's tool: Node.js 20+ and pnpm 10+ to run it, and your own LLM keys to pay for it. The project reports 3,700+ GitHub stars, 490+ forks, 700+ validated Tsinghua students across more than two years of testing, and a JCST 2026 publication.
Key features
- One-click lesson generation from a topic description or uploaded document
- Multi-agent classroom with AI teachers, teaching assistants and AI classmates
- Two-stage generation pipeline: structured lesson outline, then scene content
- Slide lectures with TTS narration, spotlight and laser pointer effects
- Auto-graded single-choice, multiple-choice and short-answer quizzes
- Knowledge-gap feedback with personalized learning path suggestions
- Interactive HTML simulations: physics simulators, algorithm visualizations, flowcharts
- Project-Based Learning with student roles, milestones and deliverables
- Real-time collaborative whiteboard where agents draw equations and diagrams
- Text-to-speech narration with multiple voice providers and customizable voices
- Automatic speech recognition for hands-free voice Q&A and discussion
- Classroom Discussion mode with AI-initiated topics and teacher call-ons
- Roundtable Debate mode with multiple AI personas arguing via whiteboard
- Free-form Q&A mode with supporting slides, diagrams and live whiteboard explanations
- LangGraph multi-agent state machine with an action engine handling 28+ action types
Behind the verdict
OpenMAIC's pitch is unusually specific: not a tutor that answers questions, but a classroom that simulates the social dynamics around a topic. The pieces that back that up are visible in the architecture — LangGraph runs the state machine governing agent turns, discussions and collaborative interactions, and an action execution engine handles 28+ action types including speech, whiteboard drawing, spotlight and laser pointer. The two-stage pipeline (outline first, then scene-by-scene content) is a sensible design choice: it gives you a structured artefact you can inspect before committing to generation, rather than one monolithic prompt. The scene variety is where it separates from chat-based study tools. Slides with TTS narration, auto-graded single-choice/multiple-choice/short-answer quizzes that flag knowledge gaps and suggest paths, browser-based HTML simulations like physics simulators and algorithm visualizations, and PBL activities with role selection, milestones and deliverables. Export to editable .pptx means an educator can rework the output in PowerPoint, and interactive HTML export gives you something distributable. Where it gets expensive is operationally. You deploy it yourself (Docker, Vercel or bare metal), you need Node.js 20+ and pnpm 10+, and you supply provider keys — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — so every lesson generation bills against your own account. The documented default is Gemini 3 Flash for the quality/speed balance, with Gemini 3.1 Pro for the best output; GPT-6 Astra, rolled out from September 2026, drops in the same way because it speaks the OpenAI-compatible protocol. There is no native mobile app and no offline mode. Licensing is the other decision point. AGPL-3.0 is generous for research and internal deployment but constrains closed-source redistribution, and commercial use outside those terms requires a separate negotiation with the THU-MAIC team. Evidence of real use exists — 700+ Tsinghua students over more than two years, a JCST 2026 publication, 3,700+ GitHub stars and 490+ forks — which matters for anyone betting a curriculum on it. Where it fits: research groups studying multi-agent orchestration, developers building an internal teaching platform, educators who want debate and discussion rather than video. Where it does not: anyone who wants to sign up and start teaching in five minutes, anyone unwilling to hold API keys, and teams whose lawyers will balk at AGPL-3.0.
Models under the hood
as of 2026-11-08
Limitations
- OpenMAIC is an open-source, self-hosted platform under AGPL-3.0, deployable via Docker, Vercel or your own infrastructure — you run it and you maintain it, including Node.js 20+ and pnpm 10+ tooling.
- It is an LLM-orchestration layer, not a model provider: you supply API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek or any OpenAI-compatible API, so generation costs land on your own provider account.
- There is no native mobile app and no offline mode; it runs in the browser against your deployment.
- The documented default is Gemini 3 Flash, with Gemini 3.1 Pro for highest quality, but generated-lesson coherence will vary with whichever model you point it at.
- Commercial use outside AGPL-3.0 terms requires a separate license negotiation with the THU-MAIC team.
as of 2026-11-03
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Is OpenMAIC still active?
OpenMAIC is live · free plan; paid plans on request · last verified 14 Nov 2026 · viability healthy.
Viability score
How well maintained and how widely used is OpenMAIC? 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: November 2026
How we score →What do users say about OpenMAIC?
What people actually say about OpenMAIC — is it worth it?
We scanned public community sources for OpenMAIC on Nov 2, 2026 and could not establish that the discussion we found is about this tool rather than something else sharing its name. Only 0 of the posts we fetched could be positively tied to OpenMAIC. Rather than publish a sentiment score built on the wrong subject, we publish nothing here and re-run the scan.
How we verified this
Every listed fact about OpenMAIC — pricing, features, links, status — is re-read from the vendor's own pages by our verification pipeline and each change is logged with a date; the last pass ran on 14 Nov 2026. Analysis is drafted with AI models and checked against our editorial standards before publishing; see how we verify.
Verification history
We have re-verified OpenMAIC 14 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.
- — changed SSL certificate
- — changed hidden costs, summary, switching in, limitations, description, models, our verdict, use cases, pricing fit, pricing tiers, features, who should skip it, switching out, setup time, who it suits
- — changed who it suits, description, who should skip it, summary, pricing tiers, features, our verdict
- — changed pricing fit, description, our verdict, features, hidden costs, limitations, switching in, switching out, models, who should skip it, setup time, summary, use cases
- — changed summary, our verdict, features, description, who should skip it, pricing tiers, integrations, who it suits
- — changed platforms, limitations
Showing the 6 most recent of 14 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
How much does OpenMAIC cost in 2026?
OpenMAIC: Free to start; it also has paid plans whose price we could not confirm — see the pricing table. Pricing last verified 14 Nov 2026.
Plans compared
Every published OpenMAIC tier, its price as the vendor publishes it, who it fits, and what it adds over the tier below. The 12-month cost projection follows.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Source (Self-Hosted) | Free | — | Developers, research labs and educators comfortable running Node.js 20+ and pnpm 10+ who already hold an LLM provider API key and want full source control.Adds: Starting tier: full AGPL-3.0 source, one-click lesson generation, multi-agent classroom and .pptx/HTML export, with LLM usage billed to your own provider account. |
| Commercial License | Custom | quote | Teams whose product or redistribution model conflicts with AGPL-3.0 terms and who need closed-source use of the OpenMAIC codebase.Adds: Adds separate commercial terms negotiated with the THU-MAIC team on top of the open-source feature set. |
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.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where OpenMAIC's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
The AGPL-3.0 source is free to self-host; your real spend is LLM tokens on your own provider account plus Docker or Vercel hosting. For a small research lab that compares favourably with per-seat closed tutoring subscriptions once you have several learners, but a single casual learner will spend less on a flat-rate hosted tutor than on generation calls.
Has OpenMAIC's pricing changed?
No plan price for OpenMAIC has moved since we began logging in Aug 2026; the pricing page is re-read on every verification pass.
Who should pick OpenMAIC?
Pick OpenMAIC if you are Developers and research groups who want a self-hosted AI teaching platform with full source control, Educators building flipped classrooms that need discussion and debate, not just video, Researchers studying multi-agent orchestration in educational settings, Self-learners comfortable running Node.js and holding their own LLM API keys.
Look elsewhere if you are Non-technical users who want a hosted, sign-up-and-go product with no Node.js, pnpm or API key setup, Learners who want simple one-on-one tutoring without AI classmates or classroom dynamics, Teams planning closed-source commercial use without negotiating a separate license (AGPL-3.0), Anyone expecting lessons to run offline or without a configured LLM provider key.
Skip it if Skip OpenMAIC if you want to teach tomorrow without touching a terminal or an API key — it needs Node.js 20+, pnpm 10+ and your own provider credentials before the first lesson generates.
GeneratedReal-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas OpenMAIC actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You upload the week's textbook chapter, review the generated outline, then let the second stage produce narrated slides, a graded quiz and a physics simulation as a pre-class assignment.
Outcome: Students arrive having already been quizzed with knowledge-gap feedback, and you export the deck as editable .pptx to adjust before publishing.
You clone the AGPL-3.0 repo, point it at Gemini 3.1 Pro and then at GPT-6 Astra through the OpenAI-compatible path, and run the same lesson prompt to compare agent turn-taking in Roundtable Debate.
Outcome: You get a reproducible classroom harness with LangGraph state machine logs and 28+ inspectable action types instead of a black-box tutor.
You deploy via Docker, connect OpenClaw to your Slack workspace, and generate a Project-Based Learning module with roles and milestones for a new-hire cohort.
Outcome: Staff start a classroom from Slack without a new login, and the AI teacher runs discussion, Q&A and whiteboard explanations in-channel.
Use cases
- Generate a complete interactive lesson from a textbook chapter in one click
- Create a physics simulation and quiz set for a high school classroom
- Deploy a multi-agent AI classroom for a corporate training program on Slack
- Export an AI-generated lecture as PowerPoint for offline editing and reuse
- Run a roundtable debate between AI personas to teach critical thinking on a contested topic
- Use OpenMAIC as a research platform to study multi-agent orchestration in real classrooms
- Convert a research paper into multi-modal, exportable course material
- Start a classroom from Feishu, Slack, Discord or Telegram via OpenClaw
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of OpenMAIC — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
A developer who already holds an LLM API key can have the Docker deployment running and the first lesson generated in under an hour; a researcher wiring OpenClaw into Slack should budget half a day. Non-technical educators should expect several hours of guided setup with a developer's help before the first classroom session.
Switching to or from OpenMAIC
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From static lecture video (Panopto, YouTube): re-generate the topic as a slide lecture with TTS narration and add quizzes in the same pass.
- →From a chat-based AI tutor: move your prompt library into topic descriptions, then let the two-stage outline/scene pipeline structure it.
- →From slide decks in PowerPoint: upload the source document as a PDF and export the generated lesson back to editable .pptx.
- ↗To PowerPoint or Google Slides: use the built-in .pptx export to keep editing outside OpenMAIC.
- ↗To a hosted LMS: export the interactive HTML lesson and embed it as a SCORM-less web object.
Integrations
Resources & guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “OpenMAIC”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “OpenMAIC” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about OpenMAIC.
Official links
What are the best OpenMAIC alternatives?
The closest alternatives to OpenMAIC we list are StreamAlive, to teach and SmartPrep.ai. Ranked by direct product-type match, not category overlap.
| Alternative | Pricing | Starts at | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| StreamAlive | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| to teach | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| SmartPrep.ai | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
Alternatives to OpenMAIC
View all
StreamAlive
StreamAlive turns Zoom, Teams and Google Meet chat into live polls, word clouds, quizzes and maps — no QR codes, no second screen.
to teach
Turns a topic or your own material into a lesson plan plus differentiated worksheets, presentations and interactive activities.
SmartPrep.ai
AI lesson planning tool that generates framework-aligned lesson bundles, web resources, and assessments for K-12 and higher-ed teachers.
Tools that pair well with OpenMAIC
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside OpenMAIC, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
StreamAlive
StreamAlive turns Zoom, Teams and Google Meet chat into live polls, word clouds, quizzes and maps — no QR codes, no second screen.
to teach
Turns a topic or your own material into a lesson plan plus differentiated worksheets, presentations and interactive activities.
SmartPrep.ai
AI lesson planning tool that generates framework-aligned lesson bundles, web resources, and assessments for K-12 and higher-ed teachers.
OpenMAIC vs its closest rival
OpenMAIC's closest head-to-head is with Surge Ai.
Our OpenMAIC vs Surge Ai verdict written Jul 3, 2026 is more than 90 days old, so it is being re-reviewed against current data and is not shown.
Frequently asked questions
For makers of OpenMAIC
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