head to head · open source
chatbox vs Onyx
chatbox has 41,797 GitHub stars, 4,253 forks, 1,290 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Onyx has 32,149 stars, 4,478 forks, 451 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chatbox leads on adoption by 30% (41,797 vs 32,149 stars). chatbox is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; Onyx is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence. chatbox has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Onyx 14%. Onyx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chatgpt), 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| chatbox | Onyx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 32K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 4.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick chatbox if
- You weight community size — 42K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Onyx if
- You want the Onyx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Onyx fits your workflow better
About chatbox
Chatbox (Community Edition) is a cross platform desktop client for large language models, written in TypeScript and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and it connects to a range of providers including OpenAI (ChatGPT), Azure OpenAI, Claude, Google Gemini Pro, Ollama and ChatGLM 6B. The project lives in the AI interaction and interfaces ecosystem, where desktop chat front ends sit between a user and one or more hosted or locally hosted model APIs. The repository carries 41,767 stars and 4,251 forks across four years of history.
read the full chatbox overview →
About Onyx
Onyx is an open source AI application layer that gives teams a self hostable chat interface with retrieval augmented generation over their own company data and more than 50 indexing connectors.
More in AI & Machine Learning
Related comparisons
More AI Interaction & Interfaces projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the AI Interaction & Interfaces field.
Frequently asked questions
Is chatbox or Onyx more popular?
chatbox has 41,797 GitHub stars and Onyx has 32,149. chatbox has the larger community by that measure.
Are chatbox and Onyx free?
Both are open source. chatbox is licensed under GPL-3.0, and Onyx has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between chatbox and Onyx?
chatbox is written in TypeScript and Onyx 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, chatbox or Onyx?
Choose chatbox if you want the larger community (41,797 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Onyx if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.