head to head · open source
AnythingLLM vs botman
AnythingLLM has 66,155 GitHub stars, 7,348 forks, 311 open issues and last shipped yesterday. botman has 6,160 stars, 812 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. AnythingLLM leads on adoption by 974% (66,155 vs 6,160 stars). AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript under MIT; botman is written in PHP under MIT. AnythingLLM has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, botman 13%. AnythingLLM was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| AnythingLLM | botman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-04-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.3K | ⑂ 812 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick AnythingLLM if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick botman if
- You want the botman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and botman fits your workflow better
About AnythingLLM
AnythingLLM is a local first AI application that enables users to chat with their documents using any large language model (LLM), local or cloud hosted. It runs as a self hosted service—by default in Docker—and provides a complete interface for document ingestion, agent orchestration, multi user access, and workflow automation without requiring external cloud dependencies. The project lives in the local AI and AI interaction ecosystem, targeting users who want full control over their data and model selection.
read the full AnythingLLM overview →
About botman
BotMan is a framework agnostic PHP library for building chat bots that run across multiple messaging platforms from a single codebase, aimed at PHP developers and Laravel teams who want cross platform bot logic without writing separate integration code for every service.
read the full botman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AnythingLLM or botman more popular?
AnythingLLM has 66,155 GitHub stars and botman has 6,160. AnythingLLM has the larger community by that measure.
Are AnythingLLM and botman free?
Both are open source. AnythingLLM is licensed under MIT and botman under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AnythingLLM and botman?
AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript and botman in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, AnythingLLM or botman?
Choose AnythingLLM if you want the larger community (66,155 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose botman if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.