Tico vs Kylon.
Kylon is a hosted workspace where people and AI agents work in shared rooms and threads. Tico is company-first: an org chart, goals and owned tasks, on computers you choose.
What Tico is.
Tico is software to deploy and run an AI company. Your AI employees and your people sit on one org chart, with goals, tasks that each have an owner, and approvals before anything consequential happens.
BotOps, the bot that runs your bots, plans the org chart with you, sets up each bot from a role template, and keeps improving the ones that fall short. The point is to run it in a structured, disciplined and reliable way.
Tico is free to run yourself. Hosting, Gateway, Support and Fully managed add help when you want it; see Pricing.
Side by side.
| Tico | Kylon | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Software to deploy and run an AI company: AI employees and people on one org chart, with goals, owned tasks and approvals. | “Your first company harness”: a workspace where “humans and AI agents work better together”, built around rooms, threads and files. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026 |
| How work is organised | Company-first. Every task has an owner and a requester, can roll up to a goal, and the requester closes it. Bots report what they did. | Chat-first. People and agents work in shared rooms, so “anyone can see what was asked, what an agent did and what is waiting for approval”. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026 |
| Where it runs | You run it: a small server plus your own Mac or Linux computers, with the AI subscriptions you already have. | A hosted service. Start free on the web, or use its Mac, iPhone and Android apps. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026 |
| Bringing your own agents | Bots run on computers you choose, with the models you already use. See Bots. | Claude Code, Codex and Devin can join rooms next to your teammates and Kylon’s own agents. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026 |
| Approvals | Every consequential action waits for a person. Bots draft email until sending is turned on for each bot. | Emails and documents come back as drafts for a person to review. Admins decide who can reach each agent. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026 |
| Licence | Source available. | A hosted product under Kylon’s own terms. Kylon terms, as of 18 Oct 2026 |
Prices are not compared here. Tico’s are on Pricing.
Where Kylon is ahead.
- Sign up and start in a browser. No install. Tico has no self-serve hosted sign-up; you install it, or ask us to host it. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026
- Phone apps. Kylon lists iPhone and Android apps. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026
- Integrations and built-in tools. Kylon says it connects to more than 3,000 integrations and has data tools built in. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026
- Apps built for you. Kylon agents build internal apps, like an invoice tracker, from your company data. Kylon home page and its FAQ, as of 18 Oct 2026
Where Tico is different.
- A company, not a chat room. An org chart with managers, goals, and tasks that each have one owner, so you can see who owns what and what is blocked.
- BotOps. The bot that runs your bots plans your org chart with you, sets each bot up from a role template, and improves the ones that fall short.
- Your servers. Tico runs on computers you choose, including your own, with the AI subscriptions you already use.
Sources.
- Kylon home page and its FAQ, read
- Kylon terms, read
We read each product’s own pages on and quote or link them. Products change; if something here is wrong or out of date, tell us at chris@tico.team and we’ll fix it.
Tico is source available. Current Tico development uses PolyForm Perimeter 1.0.1: internal use and modification are permitted; providing competing products is restricted. Earlier Apache releases keep their original terms.