head to head · open source
LobeChat vs Onyx
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars, 15,891 forks, 922 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Onyx has 32,143 stars, 4,477 forks, 451 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LobeChat leads on adoption by 157% (82,547 vs 32,143 stars). LobeChat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Onyx is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence. LobeChat has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Onyx 14%. Onyx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, chatgpt), 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 | Onyx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 83K | ★ 32K |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 4.5K |
| 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 Onyx if
- You want the Onyx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Onyx 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 Onyx
Onyx is an open source AI application layer that gives teams a self hostable chat interface with retrieval augmented generation over their own company data and more than 50 indexing connectors.
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Frequently asked questions
Is LobeChat or Onyx more popular?
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars and Onyx has 32,143. LobeChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LobeChat and Onyx free?
Neither LobeChat nor Onyx declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LobeChat and Onyx?
LobeChat is written in TypeScript and Onyx 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 Onyx?
Choose LobeChat if you want the larger community (82,547 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Onyx if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.