Handbook
Why Does Jan Exist?
Open Source & Community

Open Source & Community

AI is increasingly concentrated - built in a few places, controlled by a few companies, available in select markets.

Jan takes a different approach. We're open source because we think AI agents should work everywhere, not just where it's convenient to operate.

Why open source matters

AI agents are becoming critical tools. When you depend on something to get real work done, you shouldn't be locked into one company's roadmap or survival.

Open source means:

  • You're not stuck: run Jan yourself, fork it, modify it. Your future isn't tied to our business decisions
  • You can see how it works: no black boxes, no hidden mechanics. The code is there
  • You can make it better: found a bug? Fixed something? Let us know!

Built with a global community

Jan isn't just open source in theory. We're one of the fastest-growing open source AI projects:

  • 12+ core team members across time zones
  • 100+ contributors improving Jan every day
  • 2,800+ pull requests merged
  • 4.5M+ downloads and counting
  • 16K+ community members in Discord

Most of our work happens in the open - on GitHub for development, Discord for everything else. Our community includes developers, designers, researchers, and curious users from around the world.

Join us