head to head · open source
nanobot vs botman
nanobot has 49,822 GitHub stars, 8,711 forks, 775 open issues and last shipped yesterday. botman has 6,147 stars, 812 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. nanobot leads on adoption by 711% (49,822 vs 6,147 stars). nanobot is written in Python under MIT; botman is written in PHP under MIT. nanobot has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, botman 13%. nanobot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chatbot), 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
| nanobot | botman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-04-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 812 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nanobot if
- You weight community size — 50K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick botman if
- You want the botman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and botman fits your workflow better
About nanobot
English 简体中文 繁體中文 Español Français Bahasa Indonesia 日本語 한국어 Русский Tiếng Việt Discord · X · WeChat / Feishu nanobot 🐈 nanobot is an ultra lightweight, open source, self hosted personal AI agent framework written in Python. It runs in a WebUI, terminal, or chat apps and combines tools, long term memory, MCP integrations, model routing, multi agent delegation, scheduled automation, and an OpenAI compatible API in a small, readable core. Start Here What can nanobot do? nanobot is a self hosted personal AI agent runtime. It can: run in a browser WebUI or terminal connect to Telegram, Discord, Slack, WeChat, Email…
read the full nanobot overview →
About botman
BotMan If you want to learn how to create reusable PHP packages yourself, take a look at my upcoming PHP Package Development video course. About BotMan BotMan is a framework agnostic PHP library that is designed to simplify the task of developing innovative bots for multiple messaging platforms, including Slack, Telegram, Microsoft Bot Framework, Nexmo, HipChat, Facebook Messenger and WeChat. If you want to learn how to create reusable PHP packages yourself, take a look at my upcoming PHP Package Development video course. Documentation You can find the BotMan documentation at Stand Alone Configuration If you are…
read the full botman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nanobot or botman more popular?
nanobot has 49,822 GitHub stars and botman has 6,147. nanobot has the larger community by that measure.
Are nanobot and botman free?
Both are open source. nanobot is licensed under MIT and botman under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nanobot and botman?
nanobot is written in Python and botman in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nanobot or botman?
Choose nanobot if you want the larger community (49,822 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose botman if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.