head to head · open source
LobeChat vs Zola
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars, 15,891 forks, 922 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zola has 1,531 stars, 295 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. LobeChat leads on adoption by 5,292% (82,547 vs 1,531 stars). LobeChat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Zola is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. LobeChat has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, Zola 19%. LobeChat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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 | Zola | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 83K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 16K | ⑂ 295 |
| 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 Zola if
- You want the Zola feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Zola 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 Zola
Zola is an open source TypeScript chat interface for multiple AI model providers. It lives in the AI interaction and interface ecosystem and gives users one chat surface for OpenAI, Mistral, Claude, Gemini, and local Ollama models. The project uses Apache 2.0 and is built with Next.js, prompt kit, shadcn/ui, Tailwind CSS, Vercel AI SDK, and Supabase.
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Frequently asked questions
Is LobeChat or Zola more popular?
LobeChat has 82,547 GitHub stars and Zola has 1,531. LobeChat has the larger community by that measure.
Are LobeChat and Zola free?
Both are open source. LobeChat has no licence declared in this registry, and Zola is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LobeChat and Zola?
LobeChat is written in TypeScript and Zola 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 Zola?
Choose LobeChat if you want the larger community (82,547 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Zola if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.