Open-source alternatives to Grok

5 genuinely open-source alternatives. The projects are compared by license, workflow, self-hosting, and pricing.

Why look for a Grok alternative?

Grok is a proprietary AI assistant for conversational questions, coding, research, real-time information, image generation, and analysis. People look for alternatives when they want open-source software, local models, self-hosting, multiple providers, private document workflows, offline conversations, or less dependence on xAI and X.

Proton Lumo

Privacy-focused hosted AI assistant from Proton.

Proton Lumo provides conversational chat, document analysis, web search, image generation, projects, and Proton integrations. Its published mobile clients are GPL-licensed, but the complete hosted service and AI infrastructure are not a fully open-source stack.

GPL-3.0 for published mobile clients

Pricing: Hosted privacy-focused service; complete self-hosting is not available.

Strong privacy focus and encrypted chat storage
Document analysis, web search, image generation, and Proton Drive integration
Open-source mobile clients
Hosted infrastructure is not fully open source
Cannot self-host the complete service
Less model flexibility than self-hosted platforms

View on GitHub

Open WebUI

Self-hosted AI platform for local and cloud language models.

Open WebUI provides a unified interface for Ollama, OpenAI-compatible APIs, Anthropic, and other providers, with document RAG, web search, tools, multimodal input, user management, and extensions. Current code uses the Open WebUI License with branding restrictions.

Open WebUI License; older code BSD-3-Clause / MITSelf-hosted

Pricing: Free to self-host; current license includes branding restrictions beyond traditional permissive licenses.

Excellent self-hosting and Ollama integration
Local and cloud models, RAG, web search, tools, and multimodal support
Multi-user support and large community
Current license includes branding restrictions
Current releases are not purely BSD-3-Clause
Team deployments require infrastructure

View on GitHub

LobeChat

Multi-model chat and agent platform with knowledge bases and tools.

LobeChat, now part of the LobeHub platform, combines multi-model chat, AI agents, knowledge bases, plugins, tools, and orchestration. Its community license is based on Apache-2.0 but adds restrictions on commercial derivative works.

LobeHub Community LicenseSelf-hosted

Pricing: Self-hostable source-available community edition; license contains additional commercial restrictions.

Multiple providers, agents, knowledge bases, and tools
Model switching and self-hosting
Strong interface and agent workflows
Not standard Apache-2.0
Commercial restrictions apply
More complex than a simple Claude replacement

View on GitHub

AnythingLLM

Local-first AI workspace for documents, models, and agents.

AnythingLLM is an MIT-licensed local-first and self-hostable AI workspace with local or cloud models, document ingestion, vector search, agents, multi-user workspaces, and a developer API.

MITSelf-hosted

Pricing: Free and open source under MIT with desktop and self-hosted deployments.

MIT licensed and no mandatory account
Desktop, local models, document chat, RAG, agents, and API
Multi-user workspaces
More focused on document workflows than general Claude use
Local inference requires suitable hardware
Setup is more involved than a hosted chatbot

View on GitHub

Cherry Studio

Cross-platform desktop AI client for many model providers.

Cherry Studio is an AGPL-3.0 Community Edition desktop AI assistant for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It combines model selection, chat, knowledge bases, agents, MCP servers, documents, model comparison, and local conversation storage.

AGPL-3.0 Community Edition

Pricing: Free and open source Community Edition; external model API costs may apply.

Large provider and model selection
BYOK, local models, agents, MCP, knowledge bases, and document analysis
Cross-platform local conversation storage
Desktop-focused
Many models require external APIs
Large feature set can be more complex than Claude

View on GitHub

Compare Grok alternatives

Tool	Stars	License	Self-hosted	Pricing
Proton Lumo	—	GPL-3.0 for published mobile clients	No	Hosted privacy-focused service; complete self-hosting is not available.
Open WebUI	—	Open WebUI License; older code BSD-3-Clause / MIT	Yes	Free to self-host; current license includes branding restrictions beyond traditional permissive licenses.
LobeChat	—	LobeHub Community License	Yes	Self-hostable source-available community edition; license contains additional commercial restrictions.
AnythingLLM	—	MIT	Yes	Free and open source under MIT with desktop and self-hosted deployments.
Cherry Studio	—	AGPL-3.0 Community Edition	No	Free and open source Community Edition; external model API costs may apply.

Which one should you choose?

Want a self-hosted multi-model AI platform

Open WebUI connects local and cloud models through Ollama and compatible APIs, with knowledge bases, web search, tools, agents, and multi-user support.

Open WebUI

Want an open-source AI workspace for documents

AnythingLLM combines local and cloud models with document RAG, agents, vector databases, and multi-user workspaces.

AnythingLLM

Want a polished multi-provider desktop client

Cherry Studio supports many providers, agents, knowledge bases, MCP tools, document processing, and local data storage.

Cherry Studio

Want privacy-focused hosted AI

Proton Lumo provides a familiar assistant experience with a strong privacy focus, although the complete hosted service is not self-hostable.

Proton Lumo

Want source-available self-hosted AI interfaces

LobeChat provides a polished multi-provider agent interface with knowledge bases, plugins, tools, and self-hosting, under its current community license.

LobeChat

← Browse more software