head to head · open source
AstrBot vs kotaemon
AstrBot has 45,662 GitHub stars, 3,350 forks, 1,516 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,849 stars, 2,164 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. AstrBot leads on adoption by 77% (45,662 vs 25,849 stars). AstrBot is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. AstrBot has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. AstrBot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chatbot), 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
| AstrBot | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 26K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick AstrBot if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- 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 AstrBot
简体中文 ｜ 繁體中文 ｜ 日本語 ｜ Français ｜ Español ｜ Русский Documentation ｜ Blog ｜ Roadmap ｜ Issue Tracker ｜ Email Support AstrBot is an open source all in one Agent chatbot platform that integrates with mainstream instant messaging apps. It provides reliable and scalable conversational AI infrastructure for individuals, developers, and teams. Whether you're building a personal AI companion, intelligent customer service, automation assistant, or enterprise knowledge base, AstrBot enables you to quickly build production ready AI applications within your IM platform workflows. Key Features 1. 💯 Free & Open Source. 2. ✨ AI…
read the full AstrBot overview →
About kotaemon
kotaemon An open source clean & customizable RAG UI for chatting with your documents. Built with both end users and developers in mind. Live Demo 1 Live Demo 2 Online Install Colab Notebook (Local RAG) User Guide Developer Guide Feedback Contact Introduction This project serves as a functional RAG UI for both end users who want to do QA on their documents and developers who want to build their own RAG pipeline. For end users Clean & Minimalistic UI : A user friendly interface for RAG based QA. Support for Various LLMs : Compatible with LLM API providers (OpenAI, AzureOpenAI, Cohere, etc.) and local LLMs (via…
read the full kotaemon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AstrBot or kotaemon more popular?
AstrBot has 45,662 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,849. AstrBot has the larger community by that measure.
Are AstrBot and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. AstrBot is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and kotaemon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AstrBot and kotaemon?
AstrBot is written in Python 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, AstrBot or kotaemon?
Choose AstrBot if you want the larger community (45,662 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.