head to head · open source
Jan vs Risuai
Jan has 44,566 GitHub stars, 3,040 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Risuai has 1,690 stars, 349 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jan leads on adoption by 2,537% (44,566 vs 1,690 stars). Jan is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Risuai is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Risuai 21%. Jan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (gpt, 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 | Risuai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 349 |
| 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 TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Risuai if
- You want the Risuai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Risuai fits your workflow better
About Jan
Jan is an open source desktop application that serves as a ChatGPT replacement, enabling users to run large language models (LLMs) locally on their machines or connect to cloud based providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. It is built with Tauri, TypeScript, and integrates llama.cpp for efficient local inference, targeting privacy conscious users who want full control over their AI workflows without sending data to third parties.
About Risuai
Risuai is a cross platform, open source AI chat and roleplay client, written in TypeScript with Svelte and Tauri and licensed under GPL 3.0, for people who want to run character driven conversations against the language model of their choice instead of a single vendor's locked down chat window.
read the full Risuai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jan or Risuai more popular?
Jan has 44,566 GitHub stars and Risuai has 1,690. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and Risuai free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and Risuai is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and Risuai?
Jan is written in TypeScript and Risuai 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, Jan or Risuai?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (44,566 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Risuai if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.