head to head · open source
nanobot vs oterm
nanobot has 48,623 GitHub stars, 8,596 forks, 775 open issues and last shipped today. oterm has 2,442 stars, 138 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nanobot leads on adoption by 1,891% (48,623 vs 2,442 stars). nanobot is written in Python under MIT; oterm is written in Python under MIT. nanobot has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, oterm 6%. nanobot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (chatbot, mcp), 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 | oterm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.6K | ⑂ 138 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nanobot if
- You weight community size — 49K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick oterm if
- You want the oterm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and oterm fits your workflow better
About nanobot
nanobot is an ultra lightweight, open source, self hosted personal AI agent framework written in Python, aimed at individual developers and small teams who want to run their own agent through a browser WebUI, a terminal, or chat apps instead of renting a hosted assistant.
read the full nanobot overview →
About oterm
oterm is the terminal client for LLMs: a Python TUI that connects one terminal interface to Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, and any pydantic ai supported provider, aimed at developers and terminal centric teams who would rather chat with models from the command line than from a browser.
read the full oterm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nanobot or oterm more popular?
nanobot has 48,623 GitHub stars and oterm has 2,442. nanobot has the larger community by that measure.
Are nanobot and oterm free?
Both are open source. nanobot is licensed under MIT and oterm under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nanobot and oterm?
nanobot is written in Python and oterm 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, nanobot or oterm?
Choose nanobot if you want the larger community (48,623 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose oterm if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.