head to head · open source
Cherry Studio vs k-dense-byok
Cherry Studio has 52,003 GitHub stars, 4,978 forks, 1,514 open issues and last shipped today. k-dense-byok has 1,238 stars, 154 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Cherry Studio leads on adoption by 4,101% (52,003 vs 1,238 stars). Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; k-dense-byok is written in TypeScript under MIT. Cherry Studio has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, k-dense-byok 12%. Cherry Studio was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agent), 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
| Cherry Studio | k-dense-byok | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 154 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cherry Studio if
- You weight community size — 52K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick k-dense-byok if
- You want the k-dense-byok feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and k-dense-byok fits your workflow better
About Cherry Studio
Cherry Studio is a cross platform desktop application for interacting with large language models, built in TypeScript under the AGPL 3.0 license. It operates in the AI interaction and interfaces ecosystem, providing a unified interface to access cloud hosted models (OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic), web services (Claude, Poe, Perplexity), and locally hosted models via Ollama or LM Studio.
read the full Cherry Studio overview →
About k-dense-byok
K Dense BYOK is a free, MIT licensed, local first desktop AI research assistant for scientists in any field, which runs on your own computer and works through the AI accounts and API keys you already hold.
read the full k-dense-byok overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cherry Studio or k-dense-byok more popular?
Cherry Studio has 52,003 GitHub stars and k-dense-byok has 1,238. Cherry Studio has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cherry Studio and k-dense-byok free?
Both are open source. Cherry Studio is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and k-dense-byok under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Cherry Studio and k-dense-byok?
Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript and k-dense-byok 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, Cherry Studio or k-dense-byok?
Choose Cherry Studio if you want the larger community (52,003 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose k-dense-byok if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.