head to head · open source
LibreChat vs kotaemon
LibreChat has 46,647 GitHub stars, 9,596 forks, 732 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,849 stars, 2,164 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. LibreChat leads on adoption by 80% (46,647 vs 25,849 stars). LibreChat is written in TypeScript under MIT; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. LibreChat has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. LibreChat 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
| LibreChat | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LibreChat if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MIT 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 LibreChat
LibreChat English · 中文 🚀 What's New in v0.8.8 rc2 Agent run control: Interrupt an Agent before visible answer text, steer runs with files and quoted excerpts, durably queue follow ups, and recover saved partial work with Keep going or Answer now . Agent activity: Optional generated labels group reasoning and tool work, fold completed groups into live phase cards, keep generated files visible, summarize multi step phases, and show the current reasoning direction. Human in the loop Agents: Stream up to four related questions, pause for input or tool approval, and resume durably. Unified Agent Builder: Configure…
read the full LibreChat 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 LibreChat or kotaemon more popular?
LibreChat has 46,647 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,849. LibreChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LibreChat and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. LibreChat is licensed under MIT and kotaemon under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between LibreChat and kotaemon?
LibreChat 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, LibreChat or kotaemon?
Choose LibreChat if you want the larger community (46,647 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.