head to head · open source
AnythingLLM vs Cherry Studio
AnythingLLM has 66,141 GitHub stars, 7,347 forks, 311 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cherry Studio has 51,923 stars, 4,976 forks, 1,514 open issues and last shipped yesterday. AnythingLLM leads on adoption by 27% (66,141 vs 51,923 stars). AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript under MIT; Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. AnythingLLM has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Cherry Studio 10%. Cherry Studio was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hermes-agent), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | Cherry Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 52K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.3K | ⑂ 5.0K |
| 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 Cherry Studio if
- You want the Cherry Studio feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Cherry Studio 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 Cherry Studio
Cherry Studio is a cross platform desktop application for interacting with large language models, built in TypeScript under the AGPL 3.0 license. It operates in the AI interaction and interfaces ecosystem, providing a unified interface to access cloud hosted models (OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic), web services (Claude, Poe, Perplexity), and locally hosted models via Ollama or LM Studio.
read the full Cherry Studio overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AnythingLLM or Cherry Studio more popular?
AnythingLLM has 66,141 GitHub stars and Cherry Studio has 51,923. AnythingLLM has the larger community by that measure.
Are AnythingLLM and Cherry Studio free?
Both are open source. AnythingLLM is licensed under MIT and Cherry Studio under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AnythingLLM and Cherry Studio?
AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript and Cherry Studio in TypeScript. 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 Cherry Studio?
Choose AnythingLLM if you want the larger community (66,141 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Cherry Studio if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.