head to head · open source
Cherry Studio vs LobsterAI
Cherry Studio has 52,003 GitHub stars, 4,978 forks, 1,514 open issues and last shipped today. LobsterAI has 6,048 stars, 969 forks, 601 open issues and last shipped today. Cherry Studio leads on adoption by 760% (52,003 vs 6,048 stars). Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; LobsterAI is written in TypeScript under MIT. Cherry Studio has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, LobsterAI 16%. 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 | LobsterAI | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 969 |
| 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 LobsterAI if
- You want the LobsterAI feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and LobsterAI 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 LobsterAI
LobsterAI is an MIT licensed, Electron based desktop AI agent from NetEase Youdao that runs tools against your real local files, terminal, and browser and accepts commands from your phone through messaging apps — built for developers, analysts, and office teams who want agent automation to stay on their own machine.
read the full LobsterAI overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cherry Studio or LobsterAI more popular?
Cherry Studio has 52,003 GitHub stars and LobsterAI has 6,048. Cherry Studio has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cherry Studio and LobsterAI free?
Both are open source. Cherry Studio is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and LobsterAI under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Cherry Studio and LobsterAI?
Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript and LobsterAI 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 LobsterAI?
Choose Cherry Studio if you want the larger community (52,003 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose LobsterAI if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.