head to head · open source
Cherry Studio vs Leon
Cherry Studio has 51,923 GitHub stars, 4,976 forks, 1,514 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Leon has 17,518 stars, 1,469 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Cherry Studio leads on adoption by 196% (51,923 vs 17,518 stars). Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Leon is written in TypeScript under MIT. Cherry Studio has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Leon 8%. Cherry Studio was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agent), 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
| Cherry Studio | Leon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 18K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Cherry Studio if
- You weight community size — 52K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Leon if
- You want the Leon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Leon fits your workflow better
About Cherry Studio
Cherry Studio is a cross platform desktop application for interacting with large language models, built in TypeScript under the AGPL 3.0 license. It operates in the AI interaction and interfaces ecosystem, providing a unified interface to access cloud hosted models (OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic), web services (Claude, Poe, Perplexity), and locally hosted models via Ollama or LM Studio.
read the full Cherry Studio overview →
About Leon
Leon is open source personal AI assistant. It lives in Node.js and TypeScript ecosystem, under AI Interaction & Interfaces category. Project builds around tools, context, memory, and agentic execution. It aims to stay practical, privacy aware, and grounded in real environment. Leon can operate locally, use dedicated tools instead of relying on free form guessing, and complete tasks from start to finish across deterministic workflows and agent style execution.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Cherry Studio or Leon more popular?
Cherry Studio has 51,923 GitHub stars and Leon has 17,518. Cherry Studio has the larger community by that measure.
Are Cherry Studio and Leon free?
Both are open source. Cherry Studio is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Leon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Cherry Studio and Leon?
Cherry Studio is written in TypeScript and Leon in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Cherry Studio or Leon?
Choose Cherry Studio if you want the larger community (51,923 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Leon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.