head to head · open source
chatbox vs errbot
chatbox has 41,814 GitHub stars, 4,253 forks, 1,290 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. errbot has 3,306 stars, 624 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. chatbox leads on adoption by 1,165% (41,814 vs 3,306 stars). chatbox is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; errbot is written in Python under GPL-3.0. chatbox has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, errbot 19%. chatbox 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 | errbot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-08-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 624 |
| 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 errbot if
- You want the errbot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and errbot fits your workflow better
About chatbox
Chatbox (Community Edition) is a cross platform desktop client for large language models, written in TypeScript and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and it connects to a range of providers including OpenAI (ChatGPT), Azure OpenAI, Claude, Google Gemini Pro, Ollama and ChatGLM 6B. The project lives in the AI interaction and interfaces ecosystem, where desktop chat front ends sit between a user and one or more hosted or locally hosted model APIs. The repository carries 41,767 stars and 4,251 forks across four years of history.
read the full chatbox overview →
About errbot
Errbot is a chatbot daemon written in Python and released under the GPL 3.0 licence that connects to a chat service and lets people start scripts, plugins and operational tasks directly from the conversation, aimed at developers and operations teams who want ChatOps inside the chat tools they already use.
read the full errbot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chatbox or errbot more popular?
chatbox has 41,814 GitHub stars and errbot has 3,306. chatbox has the larger community by that measure.
Are chatbox and errbot free?
Both are open source. chatbox is licensed under GPL-3.0 and errbot under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chatbox and errbot?
chatbox is written in TypeScript and errbot in Python. 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 errbot?
Choose chatbox if you want the larger community (41,814 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose errbot if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.