head to head · open source
AnythingLLM vs sponge
AnythingLLM has 66,141 GitHub stars, 7,347 forks, 311 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sponge has 2,867 stars, 271 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. AnythingLLM leads on adoption by 2,207% (66,141 vs 2,867 stars). AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript under MIT; sponge is written in Go under MIT. AnythingLLM has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, sponge 9%. 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 | sponge | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.3K | ⑂ 271 |
| 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 sponge if
- You want the sponge feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sponge 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 sponge
Sponge is a Go development framework for building backend services through code generation. It lives in the Go ecosystem and integrates Gin, gRPC, GORM, and Protobuf. The project parses definitions written in SQL, Protobuf, or JSON configuration files into modular service code.
read the full sponge overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AnythingLLM or sponge more popular?
AnythingLLM has 66,141 GitHub stars and sponge has 2,867. AnythingLLM has the larger community by that measure.
Are AnythingLLM and sponge free?
Both are open source. AnythingLLM is licensed under MIT and sponge under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AnythingLLM and sponge?
AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript and sponge in Go. 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 sponge?
Choose AnythingLLM if you want the larger community (66,141 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose sponge if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.