head to head · open source
chatbox vs eliza
chatbox has 42,236 GitHub stars, 4,303 forks, 1,290 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. eliza has 19,756 stars, 5,861 forks, 1,069 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chatbox leads on adoption by 114% (42,236 vs 19,756 stars). chatbox is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; eliza is written in TypeScript under MIT. chatbox has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, eliza 30%. eliza was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chatbot), 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 | eliza | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 20K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 5.9K |
| 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 eliza if
- You want the eliza feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and eliza 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…
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About eliza
elizaOS Your agentic operating system. Eliza · Eliza Cloud · elizaOS downloads · Documentation · App catalog elizaOS is an open source TypeScript framework and product stack for autonomous AI agents. This monorepo contains the core runtime, the Eliza app, the CLI, cloud services, native bridges, and first party plugins. The bootable Linux and Android distributions live in the separate elizaOS/os repository. Choose a starting point Run Eliza from source The repository pins Bun and Node versions in package.json . Install those versions, then: bun install also prepares submodules and patches, provisions supported…
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Frequently asked questions
Is chatbox or eliza more popular?
chatbox has 42,236 GitHub stars and eliza has 19,756. chatbox has the larger community by that measure.
Are chatbox and eliza free?
Both are open source. chatbox is licensed under GPL-3.0 and eliza under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chatbox and eliza?
chatbox is written in TypeScript and eliza 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 eliza?
Choose chatbox if you want the larger community (42,236 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose eliza if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.