head to head · open source
Jan vs HuixiangDou
Jan has 45,409 GitHub stars, 3,145 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped yesterday. HuixiangDou has 2,499 stars, 181 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. Jan leads on adoption by 1,717% (45,409 vs 2,499 stars). Jan is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; HuixiangDou is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, HuixiangDou 7%. Jan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm), 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
| Jan | HuixiangDou | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Custom / other | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 181 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jan if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick HuixiangDou if
- You want the HuixiangDou feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and HuixiangDou fits your workflow better
About Jan
Jan Open source ChatGPT replacement English · 中文 · 日本語 Getting Started Community Changelog Bug reports Jan is bringing the best of open source AI in an easy to use product. Download and run LLMs with full control and privacy . Installation The easiest way to get started is by downloading one of the following versions for your respective operating system: Platform Download Windows jan.exe macOS jan.dmg Linux (deb) jan.deb Linux (AppImage) jan.AppImage Linux (Arm64) How to Download from jan.ai or GitHub Releases. Features Local AI Models : Download and run LLMs (Llama, Gemma, Qwen, GPT oss etc.) from HuggingFace…
About HuixiangDou
🎚️ Upgrade HuixiangDou2(ACL25) is a GraphRAG solution whose effectiveness has been demonstrated in the plant science domain and that contributed to the cover paper in Cell X0008 8) Molecular Plant. If you work outside computer science, give the new release a try. English 简体中文 HuixiangDou1 is a professional knowledge assistant based on LLM. Advantages: 1. Design three stage pipelines of preprocess, rejection and response chat in group copes with group chat scenario, answer user questions without message flooding, see 2401.08772, 2405.02817, Hybrid Retrieval and Precision Report chat with repo for real time…
read the full HuixiangDou overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jan or HuixiangDou more popular?
Jan has 45,409 GitHub stars and HuixiangDou has 2,499. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and HuixiangDou free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and HuixiangDou is licensed under BSD-3-Clause. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and HuixiangDou?
Jan is written in Rust and HuixiangDou 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, Jan or HuixiangDou?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (45,409 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose HuixiangDou if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.