head to head · open source
AnythingLLM vs kotaemon
AnythingLLM has 66,141 GitHub stars, 7,347 forks, 311 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,769 stars, 2,156 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. AnythingLLM leads on adoption by 157% (66,141 vs 25,769 stars). AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript under MIT; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. AnythingLLM has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. AnythingLLM 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
| AnythingLLM | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.3K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick AnythingLLM if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kotaemon if
- You want the kotaemon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and kotaemon fits your workflow better
About AnythingLLM
AnythingLLM is a local first AI application that enables users to chat with their documents using any large language model (LLM), local or cloud hosted. It runs as a self hosted service—by default in Docker—and provides a complete interface for document ingestion, agent orchestration, multi user access, and workflow automation without requiring external cloud dependencies. The project lives in the local AI and AI interaction ecosystem, targeting users who want full control over their data and model selection.
read the full AnythingLLM overview →
About kotaemon
kotaemon is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed Python project that provides a clean and customizable retrieval augmented generation (RAG) UI for chatting with documents. It sits in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically under AI interaction and interfaces, and is built on Gradio so that the interface itself can be extended or modified. The README frames the project as serving two distinct audiences at once: end users who want to do question answering over their own files, and developers who want to build their own RAG pipeline on top of the framework.
read the full kotaemon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AnythingLLM or kotaemon more popular?
AnythingLLM has 66,141 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,769. AnythingLLM has the larger community by that measure.
Are AnythingLLM and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. AnythingLLM is licensed under MIT and kotaemon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AnythingLLM and kotaemon?
AnythingLLM is written in JavaScript and kotaemon 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, AnythingLLM or kotaemon?
Choose AnythingLLM if you want the larger community (66,141 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.