head to head · open source
LobeChat vs Orkas
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars, 15,891 forks, 922 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Orkas has 2,029 stars, 83 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LobeChat leads on adoption by 3,968% (82,547 vs 2,029 stars). LobeChat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Orkas is written in TypeScript under MIT. LobeChat has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Orkas 4%. LobeChat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (agent-collaboration), 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 | Orkas | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 83K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 83 |
| 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 Orkas if
- You want the Orkas feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Orkas 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 Orkas
Orkas is an open source, local first AI desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux in which a Commander LLM plans a goal and coordinates specialist sub agents from one chat, built for people who want to command a team of agents rather than talk to a single chatbot.
read the full Orkas overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LobeChat or Orkas more popular?
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars and Orkas has 2,029. LobeChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LobeChat and Orkas free?
Both are open source. LobeChat has no licence declared in this registry, and Orkas is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LobeChat and Orkas?
LobeChat is written in TypeScript and Orkas 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, LobeChat or Orkas?
Choose LobeChat if you want the larger community (82,547 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Orkas if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.