head to head · open source
OpenClaw vs Khoj
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars, 82,755 forks, 6,671 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Khoj has 37,935 stars, 2,529 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. OpenClaw leads on adoption by 938% (393,747 vs 37,935 stars). OpenClaw is written in TypeScript under MIT; Khoj is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. OpenClaw has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, Khoj 7%. OpenClaw was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, assistant), 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
| OpenClaw | Khoj | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 394K | ★ 38K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 83K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenClaw if
- You weight community size — 394K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Khoj if
- You want the Khoj feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Khoj fits your workflow better
About OpenClaw
OpenClaw 🦞 — Your assistant, on your devices, in your chats OpenClaw is an open source AI assistant that runs on your own computer and meets you in the channels you already use: Discord, iMessage, Slack, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp, and 20+ more, plus native apps for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. One Gateway runs it as a personal assistant on a laptop or as a shared team deployment; configuration is the only difference. Yours, with no catch. State, memory, and credentials live on your hardware. Models and agent harnesses (Claude, Codex, local models) are plugins you can swap without changing anything…
read the full OpenClaw overview →
About Khoj
Your AI second brain 📑 Docs • 🌐 Web • 🔥 App • 💬 Discord • ✍🏽 Blog 🎁 New Meet 🌶️ Pipali our open source AI coworker that runs on your computer. Read about Khoj's excellent performance on modern retrieval and reasoning benchmarks. Overview Khoj is a personal AI app to extend your capabilities. It smoothly scales up from an on device personal AI to a cloud scale enterprise AI. Chat with any local or online LLM (e.g llama3, qwen, gemma, mistral, gpt, claude, gemini, deepseek). Get answers from the internet and your docs (including image, pdf, markdown, org mode, word, notion files). Access it from your…
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Frequently asked questions
Is OpenClaw or Khoj more popular?
OpenClaw has 393,747 GitHub stars and Khoj has 37,935. OpenClaw has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenClaw and Khoj free?
Both are open source. OpenClaw is licensed under MIT and Khoj under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenClaw and Khoj?
OpenClaw is written in TypeScript and Khoj 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, OpenClaw or Khoj?
Choose OpenClaw if you want the larger community (393,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Khoj if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.