head to head · open source
Jan vs kotaemon
Jan has 44,512 GitHub stars, 3,032 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,769 stars, 2,156 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Jan leads on adoption by 73% (44,512 vs 25,769 stars). Jan is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. Jan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (open-source), 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 | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 26K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 TypeScript
- 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 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 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 Jan or kotaemon more popular?
Jan has 44,512 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,769. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and kotaemon is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and kotaemon?
Jan is written in TypeScript 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, Jan or kotaemon?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (44,512 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.