head to head · open source
chatbox vs Langchain-Chatchat
chatbox has 41,791 GitHub stars, 4,252 forks, 1,290 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Langchain-Chatchat has 38,641 stars, 6,263 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. chatbox leads on adoption by 8% (41,791 vs 38,641 stars). chatbox is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; Langchain-Chatchat is written in Python under Apache-2.0. chatbox has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Langchain-Chatchat 16%. chatbox was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (chatbot, chatgpt, gpt), 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 | Langchain-Chatchat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 39K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2025-11-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 6.3K |
| 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 Langchain-Chatchat if
- You want the Langchain-Chatchat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Langchain-Chatchat 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 Langchain-Chatchat
Langchain Chatchat (formerly Langchain ChatGLM) is an open source RAG and Agent application built on the Langchain framework and designed to run against local large language models such as ChatGLM, Qwen, and Llama. It lives in the Python ecosystem, is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, and is published on PyPI as langchain chatchat . The project targets Chinese language scenarios and open source models specifically, with the stated goal of providing a knowledge base question answering solution that can run entirely offline.
read the full Langchain-Chatchat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chatbox or Langchain-Chatchat more popular?
chatbox has 41,791 GitHub stars and Langchain-Chatchat has 38,641. chatbox has the larger community by that measure.
Are chatbox and Langchain-Chatchat free?
Both are open source. chatbox is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Langchain-Chatchat under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chatbox and Langchain-Chatchat?
chatbox is written in TypeScript and Langchain-Chatchat 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 Langchain-Chatchat?
Choose chatbox if you want the larger community (41,791 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Langchain-Chatchat if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.