head to head · open source
nanobot vs python-telegram-bot
nanobot has 48,372 GitHub stars, 8,548 forks, 775 open issues and last shipped today. python-telegram-bot has 29,483 stars, 6,152 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped today. nanobot leads on adoption by 64% (48,372 vs 29,483 stars). nanobot is written in Python under MIT; python-telegram-bot is written in Python under GPL-3.0. nanobot has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, python-telegram-bot 21%. 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 | python-telegram-bot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 48K | ★ 29K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.5K | ⑂ 6.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nanobot if
- You weight community size — 48K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick python-telegram-bot if
- You want the python-telegram-bot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and python-telegram-bot 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 python-telegram-bot
python telegram bot is a pure Python, asynchronous wrapper around the Telegram Bot API, distributed as the python telegram bot package on PyPI and developed in the open under the copyright holder's GPL listing. It lives in the Python ecosystem and targets Python 3.10 and newer. The repository carries the topics bot, chatbot, framework, python and telegram, and the project has been maintained for roughly eleven years. Its tagline, "We have made you a wrapper you can't refuse", is the project's own framing of the role it plays: a library that sits between a Python program and Telegram's servers.…
read the full python-telegram-bot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nanobot or python-telegram-bot more popular?
nanobot has 48,372 GitHub stars and python-telegram-bot has 29,483. nanobot has the larger community by that measure.
Are nanobot and python-telegram-bot free?
Both are open source. nanobot is licensed under MIT and python-telegram-bot under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nanobot and python-telegram-bot?
nanobot is written in Python and python-telegram-bot 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 python-telegram-bot?
Choose nanobot if you want the larger community (48,372 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose python-telegram-bot if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.