What is OpenMAIC?
OpenMAIC (Open Multi-Agent Interactive Classroom) comes from Tsinghua University's MAIC team and grew out of their research on LLM-driven online teaching, published in the Journal of Computer Science and Technology. Give it a topic or upload material and it generates a lesson of slides, quizzes, interactive HTML simulations and project-based activities, delivered by AI teachers and classmates who speak, write on a whiteboard and discuss with the learner.
It is a Next.js app with PostgreSQL behind it. Since v1.2.0 generation runs server-side and survives closed tabs; models are configured per task (outline, slides, speech, web search, video) in one openmaic.yml, from OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Bedrock and Chinese providers to local Ollama and Lemonade. Lessons export as editable PPTX, a single offline HTML file or MP4. An agent skill lets OpenClaw, Codex and others create classrooms from chat apps, and an access code from open.maic.chat gives hosted generation without setup.
The repository was created in March 2026, relicensed to MIT in v0.3.0, has about 42,100 GitHub stars, and is at v1.3.0 (29 October 2026).
Is OpenMAIC worth it?
OpenMAIC is the most ambitious open-source take on generated teaching we have read about, and it has an academic pedigree most rivals lack. The output is not a summary or a narrated deck: a lesson mixes slides with quizzes, runnable simulations, mind maps and project-based learning, and an orchestrating agent hands each turn of classroom chat to AI teachers and peers who can point at, draw on or explain any element. Export to PPTX and to a single offline HTML file makes the result usable without the server.
The configuration model is well thought out for institutions. Each AI job is a named slot with its own model, so outlines can run on Claude while slides use a cheaper model and speech runs on a local TTS server. Administrators can lock slots and forbid user-supplied keys, and the server validates the file at startup and names the bad field. Recommended defaults turn every modality on, which is also where costs come from: image, video, narration and web search per lesson.
The defaults need care. Without ACCESS_CODE set, the README says no credential is checked and every route, including the API, is reachable. Docker Compose ships single-user mode bound to 127.0.0.1:3000, which is safe locally and dangerous if republished on 0.0.0.0 without a code. September brought five security releases, fixing server-side request forgery and DNS rebinding, with published advisories on provider-request redirects and MinerU parsing. Proper per-user accounts require writing auth hooks.
Upgrades are the other cost. v1.2.0 dropped Vercel and serverless hosting and made PostgreSQL mandatory; v1.3.0 cannot be rolled back. With about 216 open issues and pull requests, and minor versions every few weeks, a school adopting it should plan for an owner. Next to NotebookLM's audio overviews, OpenMAIC is more interactive and self-hostable, and far heavier to run.
Where it earns its place
A lecturer at a university running a first-year statistics course
Turn lecture notes into interactive self-study lessons
Upload the notes, let OpenMAIC build slides, quizzes and simulations, then edit in the Pro workbench and export an offline HTML file per week. Cost is model usage per lesson; a token plan such as MiniMax's covers chat, images, TTS and search with one key.
An IT lead at a vocational college with 40 instructors
Offer AI lesson generation on approved models only
Deploy with Docker Compose and PostgreSQL, lock the slots in openmaic.yml and set allowUserKeys to false, put it behind an identity gateway with the signed-JWT recipe, and set a long ACCESS_CODE before publishing on the network.
An edtech developer building a tutoring product
Reuse the generation pipeline instead of writing one
Use the @openmaic npm SDKs and the server API, which the web app shares. MIT permits commercial use; check the LGPL-3.0 terms on the bundled mathml2omml package before redistributing.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Node.js 22.19+, pnpm 10+ and PostgreSQL 16; clone, pnpm install, copy .env.example and openmaic.example.yml, add one model key, pnpm db:up and pnpm dev to reach localhost:3000. Docker Compose runs the app and PostgreSQL as two containers.
- Integrations
- OpenAI, Azure, Anthropic, Bedrock, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, MiniMax, Grok, OpenRouter, GLM, Doubao, Hunyuan, Ollama and any OpenAI-compatible API; MinerU for document parsing, FunASR and VoxCPM2 locally; Kimi, DeepSeek and Firecrawl web search; an agent skill for OpenClaw, Codex and WorkBuddy.
- Data and privacy
- Courses, chat history, learner sessions and media live in your PostgreSQL (media optionally in S3); prompts and uploads go to the configured providers. ACCESS_CODE is the only gate unless auth hooks are added; GHSA-g87c-cm4q-cw5x and GHSA-cpjc-vgjh-c5jp were fixed in v1.1.2 and v1.1.1.
- Cost at scale
- No paid self-hosted edition. Spend is model usage per lesson across text, images, narration, video and search, plus a server and PostgreSQL; MP4 export needs a separate Chromium and FFmpeg render container. Hosted access-code pricing is not published.
- Limits
- About 216 open issues and pull requests; serverless hosts unsupported from v1.2.0; classroom chat needs a tool-calling model; the agent slot cannot set thinking effort.
What’s good
- Lessons mix slides, quizzes, simulations and PBL
- AI teachers speak, draw and answer about any element
- Per-task model slots with admin locks
- Exports to PPTX, offline HTML and MP4
What’s not
- No auth at all unless ACCESS_CODE is set
- Real accounts need custom auth hooks
- PostgreSQL and a long-running server since v1.2.0
- v1.3.0 upgrade is one-way
Best for
University teaching teams and edtech builders who want self-hosted, multi-agent interactive lessons and have someone to run a Node and PostgreSQL service.
OpenMAIC alternatives
OpenMAIC: common questions
- Is OpenMAIC worth it?
- OpenMAIC produces genuinely interactive lessons instead of a talking slide deck, but running it for more than one person means taking its security defaults seriously. We rate it 3.9 out of 5.
- How much does OpenMAIC cost?
- Free and open source (MIT; one bundled package is LGPL-3.0). Self-hosted, you pay your model providers; hosted generation uses an access code from open.maic.chat, with pricing not published.
- What are the downsides of OpenMAIC?
- No auth at all unless ACCESS_CODE is set; real accounts need custom auth hooks; postgreSQL and a long-running server since v1.2.0; v1.3.0 upgrade is one-way.
- Who is OpenMAIC best for?
- University teaching teams and edtech builders who want self-hosted, multi-agent interactive lessons and have someone to run a Node and PostgreSQL service.
- How much does OpenMAIC cost for a team or in production?
- No paid self-hosted edition. Spend is model usage per lesson across text, images, narration, video and search, plus a server and PostgreSQL; MP4 export needs a separate Chromium and FFmpeg render container. Hosted access-code pricing is not published.
- Is OpenMAIC safe for company data?
- Courses, chat history, learner sessions and media live in your PostgreSQL (media optionally in S3); prompts and uploads go to the configured providers. ACCESS_CODE is the only gate unless auth hooks are added; GHSA-g87c-cm4q-cw5x and GHSA-cpjc-vgjh-c5jp were fixed in v1.1.2 and v1.1.1.
- What are the best OpenMAIC alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are notebooklm-py, Open Notebook and DeepTutor.
Answers checked Oct 31, 2026.