head to head · open source
pi vs nanobot
pi has 106,704 GitHub stars, 13,453 forks, 202 open issues and last shipped today. nanobot has 48,302 stars, 8,534 forks, 775 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pi leads on adoption by 121% (106,704 vs 48,302 stars). pi is written in TypeScript under MIT; nanobot is written in Python under MIT. pi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, nanobot 18%. pi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| pi | nanobot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 107K | ★ 48K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 8.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick pi if
- You weight community size — 107K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nanobot if
- You want the nanobot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and nanobot fits your workflow better
About pi
Pi is a modular agent toolkit written in TypeScript for building and running terminal based AI coding agents. It lives in the developer tooling ecosystem and provides composable packages for LLM integration, agent orchestration, and terminal UI rendering. The project centers on @earendil works/pi coding agent , an interactive CLI agent, supported by core runtime, AI abstraction, and TUI libraries.
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is pi or nanobot more popular?
pi has 106,704 GitHub stars and nanobot has 48,302. pi has the larger community by that measure.
Are pi and nanobot free?
Both are open source. pi is licensed under MIT and nanobot under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between pi and nanobot?
pi is written in TypeScript and nanobot 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, pi or nanobot?
Choose pi if you want the larger community (106,704 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nanobot if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.