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Microsoft 365 Copilot alternative that runs on your own infrastructure

Microsoft 365 Copilot is the natural choice for organisations whose knowledge and users live entirely in Microsoft 365 and whose policy allows Microsoft's cloud to process that content. DocsGPT is a self-hostable, MIT-licensed alternative for estates that are not Microsoft-only, must run on-premises or air-gapped, need their own or local models, or need benchmarked answer quality on domain documents. It reads SharePoint and OneDrive through connectors while staying in your environment.

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Last updated: · Facts checked on

Microsoft 365 Copilot and DocsGPT at a glance

Licence, hosting, models, price, contract and data access, side by side.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a proprietary, cloud-only assistant priced at $30/user/month list on top of a Microsoft 365 licence, using Microsoft-selected models, with Microsoft's service processing content. DocsGPT is MIT-licensed, runs in four postures including air-gapped, works with any cloud or local model, publishes its Cloud price and charges flat for self-hosted deployments.

Microsoft 365 Copilot and DocsGPT compared on 6 rows
 Microsoft 365 CopilotDocsGPT
Open-source licenceProprietary1MIT (platform and CLI)2
Self-host and air-gapNo — cloud service; no on-premises or air-gapped mode recorded1Yes — Self-hosted (community), On-premises and Air-gapped (zero external egress), from one seat2
Model choice / BYOMMicrosoft-selected models1Any cloud provider or local engine (Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp and others); BYOM2
Transparent pricing$30/user/month list1Yes, per posture: Cloud $20/seat/month; Managed from $2,000/month, flat; On-premises and Air-gapped from $10,000, one-time or recurring2
Seat minimum / contractMicrosoft 365 licence prerequisite; no seat minimum recorded1None; self-hosting has no licence fee2
Vendor access to dataYes (Microsoft service processes content)1Yes on Cloud and Managed — Arc53 operates both, Managed as a dedicated instance in your region; No on On-premises and Air-gapped, which you operate2

¹ Microsoft 365 Copilot facts checked on . ·² Sources: docs.docsgpt.cloud and the public repository.

Where Microsoft 365 Copilot is the better fit

  • Knowledge, identity and users are entirely inside Microsoft 365.
  • The main use is authoring inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.
  • An existing Microsoft 365 licence, which Copilot requires, makes the add-on the simplest procurement path.
  • Policy already accepts Microsoft's cloud processing the organisation's content.

Where DocsGPT is the better fit

  • The estate is not Microsoft-only: SharePoint next to Confluence, Google Drive, GitHub, S3 or a wiki — plus Notion, Jira or Linear for agents to work in.
  • Content must stay on-premises or in a fully air-gapped network.
  • Models are chosen by you: your cloud provider key, or local engines such as Ollama and vLLM.
  • Answer quality on domain documents has to be measured before rollout, with docsgpt-cli bench.
  • Document workflows need deterministic checks and human approval, not only chat.
  • Governance stays with your admins: OIDC and SCIM against Entra ID, which connectors are enabled and whether they can write, usage quotas per person and an audit log exported as CSV or NDJSON.
Models available to agents
models3 models · pick per chat or agent

  • Qwen3.8-Flash-Next

    Ollama · http://ollama:11434

    defaultlocal

  • GLM-5.3-Flash

    vLLM · http://gpu-01:8000/v1

    local

  • GPT-5.6 Sol

    DocsGPT · api key · via Arc53

    cloud

  • + Add model bring your own · openai-compatible

    base url https://…/v1api key ••••••••model id my-model

24 h → 16 min

A large Central European commercial bank processes 10,000+ inbound documents a day; time-to-action fell from 24 hours to 16 minutes, with over 99.5 % classification accuracy, running fully air-gapped on the bank's existing NVIDIA T4 GPUs.

Source: EU bank, name under NDA

Government infrastructure, local inference

UK Department for Work and Pensions: an internal knowledge assistant on government infrastructure, with local inference.

Source: DWP

Cost at 100 and 1,000 seats

List price × seats × 12, before negotiation. DocsGPT Cloud is per seat; Managed and On-premises are flat per deployment, from the published starting prices.

Annual cost at 100 and 1,000 seats
 Microsoft 365 CopilotDocsGPT
100 seats, per year$36,000/yrCloud $24,000/yr · Managed from $24,000/yr · On-premises from $10,000, one-time or recurring
1,000 seats, per year$360,000/yrCloud $240,000/yr · Managed from $24,000/yr · On-premises from $10,000, one-time or recurring
Basis$30/user/month list × seats × 12; Microsoft 365 licence not includedCloud $20/seat/month × seats × 12 · Managed from $2,000/month, flat · On-premises and Air-gapped from $10,000, one-time or recurring, plus your infrastructure

Before negotiation; add-ons excluded; checked on 2026-09-06.

Annual cost vs seatslist prices · 2026-09-06
Annual cost versus seats: Microsoft 365 Copilot per-seat list price against DocsGPT Cloud per seat and a flat Managed instanceMicrosoft 365 Copilot annual cost rises linearly with seats from zero to $360,000 at 1000 seats. DocsGPT Cloud rises to $240,000; DocsGPT Managed is flat at $24,000 from its from-price.$0$90k$180k$270k$360k02505007501,000SEATSMicrosoft 365 Copilot, $30/user/mo listDocsGPT Cloud, $20/seat/moDocsGPT Managed, from $2,000/month flat ($24,000/yr)
Text version

At 100 seats Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $36,000 per year at the $30 per user per month list price; at 1,000 seats, $360,000. DocsGPT Cloud at $20 per seat per month costs $24,000 per year at 100 seats and $240,000 at 1,000; a Managed instance is flat from $24,000 per year at any seat count; On-premises and Air-gapped start from $10,000, one-time or recurring, plus your own infrastructure. Facts checked on 2026-09-06.

Using DocsGPT with SharePoint and OneDrive

Connectors read the Microsoft 365 estate into a deployment you control. Details on Connectors.

DocsGPT connects to SharePoint and OneDrive through its connectors, indexes the documents inside your Cloud, Managed or On-premises deployment, and answers with citations to the source file and page. Microsoft 365 remains the system of record; DocsGPT reads from it and, on Managed and On-premises, keeps the index, embeddings and model inside your environment. Each person signs in with their own Microsoft account through Entra ID, and sync runs daily, weekly, monthly or on demand. Your admins decide in Admin › Connectors whether the connector is enabled for everyone. The connector needs reachability to your Microsoft 365 tenant, so an Air-gapped deployment ingests exported files by upload instead.

 Read by the connectorNotes
OneDriveFiles and folders in the signed-in person's OneDriveBrowse and pick files or folders when adding the source
Shared with youSharePoint and OneDrive files and folders shared with that personWork or school accounts; same browse-and-pick selection
File formatsOffice files (docx · doc · xlsx · xls · pptx · ppt), PDF, text (txt · md · rst · html · json · rtf · epub), CSV and images (png · jpg); 30+ formats in allScanned PDFs and images pass through OCR
MetadataFile name, path, modified dateShown in the citation panel
PermissionsThe connector reads only what the signed-in Microsoft account can open; inside DocsGPT, access follows SSO (OIDC), roles and per-source sharingSources are shared with teams and people inside DocsGPT

SharePoint and OneDrive only; no Teams connector.

app · Knowledge
app · Knowledge

Frequently asked questions

What can I use instead of Microsoft Copilot?

Alternatives recorded on these pages are Glean and ChatGPT Enterprise (both hosted) and open-source platforms such as Onyx and DocsGPT that can be self-hosted. The deciding axes are where the content is processed, which models you may use, and whether pricing is per seat. See all comparisons.

Is Glean like Copilot?

Both are hosted, per-seat assistants that index company content and are operated by the vendor. Glean spans many SaaS sources and is sold with contract minimums; Copilot is tied to Microsoft 365 and priced at $30/user/month list. Neither has an on-premises or air-gapped mode (checked 2026-09-06). See DocsGPT vs Microsoft 365 Copilot and DocsGPT vs Glean.

Can I use AI on SharePoint without Copilot?

Yes. DocsGPT connects to SharePoint and OneDrive through its connectors, indexes the documents inside your deployment and answers with citations, so SharePoint content can be used from a Cloud, Managed or On-premises instance without a Copilot licence. The connector needs reachability to your Microsoft 365 tenant, so it is for connected estates; an Air-gapped deployment ingests exported files by upload instead. See Connectors.

Does Microsoft 365 Copilot work air-gapped?

Microsoft publishes no offline or air-gapped mode (checked 2026-09-06); Copilot runs as a Microsoft cloud service. DocsGPT's air-gapped posture runs the platform, embeddings and a local LLM inside your network with zero external egress.

Alex Tushynski

Co-Founder, Arc53

Spotted an error? Request a correction and we will fix it and update the date.

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