head to head · open source
LobeChat vs Swirl Search
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars, 15,891 forks, 922 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Swirl Search has 3,046 stars, 286 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. LobeChat leads on adoption by 2,610% (82,547 vs 3,046 stars). LobeChat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Swirl Search is written in Python under Apache-2.0. LobeChat has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Swirl Search 9%. LobeChat 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
| LobeChat | Swirl Search | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 83K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 286 |
| 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 Swirl Search if
- You want the Swirl Search 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 Swirl Search 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 Swirl Search
Swirl Search is an open source federated AI search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) platform written in Python and built on Django. It lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically the AI interaction and interface space, and is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license as SWIRL Community. The project queries more than 100 connected sources live, ranks the combined results, and optionally generates an answer with citations using a large language model of the operator's choice. It ships with the Galaxy UI, the same interface used by the commercial SWIRL Enterprise edition.
read the full Swirl Search overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LobeChat or Swirl Search more popular?
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars and Swirl Search has 3,046. LobeChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LobeChat and Swirl Search free?
Both are open source. LobeChat has no licence declared in this registry, and Swirl Search is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LobeChat and Swirl Search?
LobeChat is written in TypeScript and Swirl Search 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 Swirl Search?
Choose LobeChat if you want the larger community (82,547 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Swirl Search if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.