BYOAIK (Bring Your Own AI Key) is a directory of AI tools that run on your own API key.

big-AGI

Multi-model AI workspace with Beam multi-model chat, personas, image and voice, on your own keys

Category:: AI Chat Interfaces
Maintenance:: Actively developed (last commit yesterday)
Pricing:: Open Source
Open source:: Yes (MIT)
Self-hostable:: Yes
Local-first:: Yes
Platforms:: Web, Self-hosted, Docker
AI providers (bring your own key):: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, Mistral, Perplexity, DeepSeek, xAI Grok, Together AI, Ollama, Custom / OpenAI-compatible
API key storage:: User controls deployment
Key risk level:: LOW
Trust score:: 86/100

big-AGI is an open-source, multi-model AI workspace aimed at "experts." It runs on a bring-your-own-key model: users connect their own provider API keys (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and 20+ others) and big-AGI charges nothing for model usage, with keys stored locally in the browser by default. Standout features include Beam (run one prompt across multiple models simultaneously to compare/validate responses), customizable AI personas, text-to-image generation and editing, voice/TTS, web search with citations, code highlighting and execution, PDF import, and split-window multi-chat. It can be used via the free hosted app at app.big-agi.com (BYOK) or self-hosted from the MIT-licensed codebase via Docker/Vercel; a paid Pro tier adds cloud sync, backup, and priority support. A native desktop app is advertised as "coming soon." The repo is actively maintained (v2.0.5, May 2026, ~7k stars) and explicitly markets itself as non-VC-funded with zero lock-in.

Why this trust score (86/100)

Trust measures how the tool treats your API key and how much of that has been verified. It contains no popularity signal.

Key Safety 21/25: The key lives in a deployment you run yourself.
Request Routing 17/20: Requests go straight from you to the AI provider.
Transparency 20/20: Source is public under MIT, so anyone can check how the key is handled. Key handling was located in the published source.
Privacy 11/15: Local-first: it works without sending your data anywhere. Can be self-hosted, so the data path stays inside infrastructure you control. Analytics or error-reporting libraries are present; what they send was not established.
Maintenance 10/10: Actively developed: commits within the last three months.
Verification Confidence 7/10: Key handling was found in the published source by BYOAIK's scanner.

What was checked

Verification tier SOURCE_VERIFIED, derived from the evidence below and not set by hand.

[REPORTED · RESEARCH] This listing was compiled by an AI-assisted research pass over the tool's public website, README and documentation. No person independently confirmed it.
[STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own OpenAI key: the project references its API key variable. source
[STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] Supports a local model backend, so it can run with no cloud provider key at all. source
[CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Ships a container definition, so it can be self-hosted on your own infrastructure. source
[REPORTED · SOURCE_SCAN] References PostHog, so some analytics or error reporting is present. This scan cannot tell whether it is opt-in or what it sends. source
[CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Most recent commit 2026-08-15, about 0 month(s) ago. source

How your API key is handled

You self-host the app, so your API key lives in your own deployment. Requests are sent directly to the AI provider. Because it can be self-hosted, your key never has to touch a third-party backend.

Setup

Deploy it (Docker/compose), add your provider API key in the admin or environment config, then select models.