head to head · open source
kotaemon vs rikkahub
kotaemon has 25,769 GitHub stars, 2,156 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. rikkahub has 7,686 stars, 683 forks, 282 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon leads on adoption by 235% (25,769 vs 7,686 stars). kotaemon is written in Python under Apache-2.0; rikkahub is written in Kotlin under AGPL-3.0. kotaemon has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, rikkahub 9%. rikkahub 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
| kotaemon | rikkahub | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-07-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 683 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kotaemon if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rikkahub if
- You want the rikkahub feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and rikkahub fits your workflow better
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 →
About rikkahub
RikkaHub is a native Android LLM chat client, written in Kotlin and released under the AGPL 3.0 licence, that lets a single user switch between different AI providers inside the same conversation.
read the full rikkahub overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kotaemon or rikkahub more popular?
kotaemon has 25,769 GitHub stars and rikkahub has 7,686. kotaemon has the larger community by that measure.
Are kotaemon and rikkahub free?
Both are open source. kotaemon is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rikkahub under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kotaemon and rikkahub?
kotaemon is written in Python and rikkahub in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kotaemon or rikkahub?
Choose kotaemon if you want the larger community (25,769 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rikkahub if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.