head to head · open source
LobeChat vs Athena-Public
LobeChat has 82,576 GitHub stars, 15,895 forks, 922 open issues and last shipped today. Athena-Public has 589 stars, 78 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LobeChat leads on adoption by 13,920% (82,576 vs 589 stars). LobeChat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Athena-Public is written in Python under MIT. LobeChat has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Athena-Public 13%. LobeChat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai, chatgpt, gemini), 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
| LobeChat | Athena-Public | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 83K | ★ 589 |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 78 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LobeChat if
- You weight community size — 83K 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 Athena-Public if
- You want the Athena-Public feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Athena-Public fits your workflow better
About LobeChat
LobeHub is an open source platform for managing, building, and operating AI agent teams. It functions as a Chief Agent Operator (CAO), enabling users to organize, schedule, and monitor autonomous AI agents around the clock. The project lives in the AI interaction and interfaces ecosystem, integrating with major LLM providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and Alibaba’s GLM series.
read the full LobeChat overview →
About Athena-Public
Project Athena A local first agentic PKM that helps you make better decisions with your own context. Capture what you learn, retrieve it when relevant, and carry your context between models — a local first memory, reasoning, and governance layer for any LLM, across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and whatever you switch to next. Own the state. Rent the intelligence. Platforms forget. Athena doesn't. Most assistants remember you so they can agree with you faster. Athena remembers you so it can tell you when you're wrong. Quickstart · How It Works · Scheduled Tasks & Self RSI · llms.txt · Docs · FAQ · Safety · Contributin…
read the full Athena-Public overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LobeChat or Athena-Public more popular?
LobeChat has 82,576 GitHub stars and Athena-Public has 589. LobeChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LobeChat and Athena-Public free?
Both are open source. LobeChat has no licence declared in this registry, and Athena-Public is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LobeChat and Athena-Public?
LobeChat is written in TypeScript and Athena-Public 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 Athena-Public?
Choose LobeChat if you want the larger community (82,576 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Athena-Public if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.