head to head · open source
Cherry Studio vs MaxKB
Cherry Studio has 51,923 GitHub stars, 4,976 forks, 1,514 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MaxKB has 22,824 stars, 3,156 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cherry Studio leads on adoption by 127% (51,923 vs 22,824 stars). Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; MaxKB is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Cherry Studio has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, MaxKB 14%. Cherry Studio was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | MaxKB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 23K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 3.2K |
| 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 MaxKB if
- You want the MaxKB 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 MaxKB 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 MaxKB
MaxKB is an open source Python platform for building enterprise grade agents in the AI and machine learning ecosystem. It combines a web interface, LangChain based retrieval augmented generation, workflow orchestration, and MCP tool use so organizations can connect large language models to their own documents, systems, and business processes. The project is positioned as a knowledge brain deployed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
read the full MaxKB overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cherry Studio or MaxKB more popular?
Cherry Studio has 51,923 GitHub stars and MaxKB has 22,824. Cherry Studio has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cherry Studio and MaxKB free?
Both are open source. Cherry Studio is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MaxKB under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Cherry Studio and MaxKB?
Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript and MaxKB 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, Cherry Studio or MaxKB?
Choose Cherry Studio if you want the larger community (51,923 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MaxKB if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.