head to head · open source
chatbox vs lobe-ui
chatbox has 42,247 GitHub stars, 4,307 forks, 1,290 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. lobe-ui has 2,249 stars, 277 forks, 61 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chatbox leads on adoption by 1,778% (42,247 vs 2,249 stars). chatbox is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; lobe-ui is written in TypeScript under MIT. chatbox has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, lobe-ui 12%. lobe-ui 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 | lobe-ui | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 277 |
| 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 lobe-ui if
- You want the lobe-ui feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and lobe-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 lobe-ui
Lobe UI Lobe UI is an open source UI component library for building AIGC web apps Documents · Changelog · [Report Bug][github issues link] · [Request Feature][github issues link] [![][npm release shield]][npm release link] [![][vercel shield]][vercel link] [![][discord shield]][discord link] [![][npm downloads shield]][npm downloads link] [![][github releasedate shield]][github releasedate link] [![][github action test shield]][github action test link] [![][github action release shield]][github action release link] [![][github contributors shield]][github contributors link] [![][github forks shield]][github…
read the full lobe-ui overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chatbox or lobe-ui more popular?
chatbox has 42,247 GitHub stars and lobe-ui has 2,249. chatbox has the larger community by that measure.
Are chatbox and lobe-ui free?
Both are open source. chatbox is licensed under GPL-3.0 and lobe-ui under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chatbox and lobe-ui?
chatbox is written in TypeScript and lobe-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 lobe-ui?
Choose chatbox if you want the larger community (42,247 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose lobe-ui if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.