head to head · open source
Jan vs MaxKB
Jan has 45,332 GitHub stars, 3,133 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MaxKB has 23,095 stars, 3,210 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jan leads on adoption by 96% (45,332 vs 23,095 stars). Jan is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; MaxKB is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, MaxKB 14%. 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 | MaxKB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 23K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 3.2K |
| 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 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 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 MaxKB
Open source platform for building enterprise grade agents 强大易用的企业级智能体平台 [ 中文(简体) ] [ English ] MaxKB = Max Knowledge Brain, it is an open source platform for building enterprise grade agents. MaxKB integrates Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, supports robust workflows, and provides advanced MCP tool use capabilities. MaxKB is widely applied in scenarios such as intelligent customer service, corporate internal knowledge bases, academic research, and education. RAG Pipeline : Supports direct uploading of documents / automatic crawling of online documents, with features for automatic text splitting…
read the full MaxKB overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jan or MaxKB more popular?
Jan has 45,332 GitHub stars and MaxKB has 23,095. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and MaxKB free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and MaxKB is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and MaxKB?
Jan is written in Rust 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, Jan or MaxKB?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (45,332 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose MaxKB if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.