head to head · open source
chatbox vs assistant-ui
chatbox has 42,247 GitHub stars, 4,307 forks, 1,290 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. assistant-ui has 12,936 stars, 1,311 forks, 207 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chatbox leads on adoption by 227% (42,247 vs 12,936 stars). chatbox is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; assistant-ui is written in TypeScript under MIT. chatbox has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, assistant-ui 10%. assistant-ui was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (chatbot, copilot), 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
| chatbox | assistant-ui | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 13K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick chatbox if
- You weight community size — 42K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick assistant-ui if
- You want the assistant-ui feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and assistant-ui fits your workflow better
About chatbox
English 简体中文 Chatbox (Community Edition) Your Ultimate AI Copilot on the Desktop. Chatbox is a desktop client for ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs, available on Windows, Mac, Linux This is the repository for the Chatbox Community Edition, open sourced under the GPLv3 license. Chatbox is going open source Again! We regularly sync code from the pro repo to this repo, and vice versa. Download Desktop Windows MacOS Linux Setup.exe Intel Apple Silicon AppImage iOS/Android .APK For more information: chatboxai.app Quick Start For End Users 1. Download the appropriate installer for your platform from the releases page 2…
read the full chatbox overview →
About assistant-ui
Product · Documentation · Examples · Discord · Contact Sales The UX of ChatGPT in your React app 💬🚀 assistant ui is an open source TypeScript/React library to build production grade AI chat experiences fast. Installation The fastest path is the CLI, which scaffolds a Next.js app or adds the styled components to an existing project: Or install the packages directly: Usage useChatRuntime connects to the Vercel AI SDK out of the box. Swap it for useLangGraphRuntime , useDataStreamRuntime , or any custom runtime to integrate with your own backend. What you get Composable primitives : build any chat UX from Thread…
read the full assistant-ui overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chatbox or assistant-ui more popular?
chatbox has 42,247 GitHub stars and assistant-ui has 12,936. chatbox has the larger community by that measure.
Are chatbox and assistant-ui free?
Both are open source. chatbox is licensed under GPL-3.0 and assistant-ui under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chatbox and assistant-ui?
chatbox is written in TypeScript and assistant-ui 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, chatbox or assistant-ui?
Choose chatbox if you want the larger community (42,247 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose assistant-ui if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.