head to head · open source
LobeChat vs kotaemon
LobeChat has 83,716 GitHub stars, 16,033 forks, 922 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,849 stars, 2,164 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. LobeChat leads on adoption by 224% (83,716 vs 25,849 stars). LobeChat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0. LobeChat has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, kotaemon 8%. LobeChat 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
| LobeChat | kotaemon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 84K | ★ 26K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LobeChat if
- You weight community size — 84K 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 LobeChat
[![][image banner]][vercel link] LobeHub LobeHub organizes your agents into 7×24 operation. It hires, schedules, reports on your entire AI team. You stay in charge — without staying online. English · 简体中文 · [Official Site][official site] · [Changelog][changelog] · [Documents][docs] · [Blog][blog] · [Feedback][github issues link] [![][github release shield]][github release link] [![][docker release shield]][docker release link] [![][vercel shield]][vercel link] [![][discord shield]][discord link] [![][codecov shield]][codecov link] [![][github action test shield]][github action test link] [![][github action…
read the full LobeChat 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 LobeChat or kotaemon more popular?
LobeChat has 83,716 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,849. LobeChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LobeChat and kotaemon free?
Both are open source. LobeChat 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 LobeChat and kotaemon?
LobeChat 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, LobeChat or kotaemon?
Choose LobeChat if you want the larger community (83,716 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.