head to head · open source
LibreChat vs kotaemon
LibreChat has 44,217 GitHub stars, 9,087 forks, 732 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kotaemon has 25,769 stars, 2,156 forks, 247 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. LibreChat leads on adoption by 72% (44,217 vs 25,769 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 | ★ 44K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.1K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LibreChat if
- You weight community size — 44K 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 is an open source, self hostable chat interface designed as an enhanced ChatGPT clone. It unifies access to multiple AI models—including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, and others—within a single web application. Built in TypeScript, it supports real time streaming, multi model switching, and advanced agent workflows while providing features like message search, artifacts, code interpreter, and secure multi user authentication.
read the full LibreChat overview →
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 LibreChat or kotaemon more popular?
LibreChat has 44,217 GitHub stars and kotaemon has 25,769. 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 (44,217 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kotaemon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.