# kotaemon

Product · https://godooo.ai/en/product/kotaemon

> kotaemon is an open-source AI app, launched in 2024, made for people who don't write code and developers.

A self-hosted web app for chatting with your documents, with citations.

Main jobs: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG). It is open source and free to use. You can use it in the browser, on your own server and offline on your own machine.

## At a glance

- **Type:** [Product](https://godooo.ai/en/browse#product)
- **Launched:** 2024
- **Galaxy:** [Assistants](https://godooo.ai/en/galaxy/assistants)
- **Pricing:** Open source, free
- **Open source:** Yes · Apache-2.0
- **Source code:** [github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon](https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon)
- **GitHub stars:** 25,778
- **How you run it:** Web · Self-host · Runs offline
- **Made for:** No-code users · Developers
- **Website:** [cinnamon.github.io](https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon)

## What it can do

- **[Ask your documents](https://godooo.ai/en/capability/document-qa)** — main job, _proposed by a machine, awaiting calibration_. “An open-source clean & customizable RAG UI for chatting with your documents.” (read on [github.com](https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon), 2026-09-24)
- **[Knowledge base (RAG)](https://godooo.ai/en/capability/knowledge-base)** — main job, _proposed by a machine, awaiting calibration_. “GraphRAG indexing pipeline is provided as an example.” (read on [github.com](https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon), 2026-09-24)
- **[Build a chatbot](https://godooo.ai/en/capability/chatbot-builder)** — supported, _proposed by a machine, awaiting calibration_. “Framework for RAG Pipelines : Tools to build your own RAG-based document QA pipeline.” (read on [github.com](https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon), 2026-09-24)
- **[Document parsing](https://godooo.ai/en/capability/document-parsing)** — supported, _proposed by a machine, awaiting calibration_. “Setup multimodal document parsing (OCR, table parsing, figure extraction)” (read on [github.com](https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon), 2026-09-24)

## Alternatives

- **[RAGFlow](https://godooo.ai/en/product/ragflow)** (Open source, free): Also does: Ask your documents, Document parsing, Knowledge base (RAG)
- **[QAnything](https://godooo.ai/en/product/qanything)** (Open source, free): Also does: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG), Build a chatbot
- **[AnythingLLM](https://godooo.ai/en/product/anythingllm)** (Open source, free): Also does: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG), Build a chatbot
- **[PrivateGPT](https://godooo.ai/en/framework/privategpt)** (Open source, free): Also does: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG), Document parsing
- **[Khoj](https://godooo.ai/en/product/khoj)** (Open source, free): Also does: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG)
- **[Langchain-Chatchat](https://godooo.ai/en/product/langchain-chatchat)** (Open source, free): Also does: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG)
- **[MaxKB](https://godooo.ai/en/product/maxkb)** (Open source, free): Also does: Build a chatbot, Knowledge base (RAG), Ask your documents
- **[LlamaIndex](https://godooo.ai/en/framework/llamaindex)** (Open source, free): Also does: Knowledge base (RAG), Ask your documents, Document parsing
- **[FastGPT](https://godooo.ai/en/product/fastgpt)** (Open source, free): Also does: Build a chatbot, Knowledge base (RAG), Document parsing
- **[NotebookLM](https://godooo.ai/en/product/notebooklm)** (Free plan + paid upgrades): Also does: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG)
- **[Dify](https://godooo.ai/en/product/dify)** (Open source, free): Also does: Build a chatbot, Knowledge base (RAG)
- **[Botpress](https://godooo.ai/en/product/botpress)** (Open source, free): Also does: Build a chatbot, Knowledge base (RAG)

## Connections

- **Applies:** [Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)](https://godooo.ai/en/concept/rag)

## Questions

### What is kotaemon?

kotaemon is an open-source AI app, launched in 2024, made for people who don't write code and developers. A self-hosted web app for chatting with your documents, with citations.

### Is kotaemon free?

Yes. kotaemon is open source (Apache-2.0) and free to use.

### Is kotaemon open source?

Yes, under the Apache-2.0 license. The source code is at https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon.

### Can kotaemon run locally?

Yes. kotaemon can run offline on your own machine. It can also be self-hosted on your own server.

### What can kotaemon do?

Main jobs: Ask your documents, Knowledge base (RAG). It can also do: Build a chatbot, Document parsing.

### What are open-source alternatives to kotaemon?

Open-source ones: RAGFlow, QAnything, AnythingLLM, PrivateGPT, Khoj, Langchain-Chatchat, MaxKB and LlamaIndex. Others: NotebookLM.

## Sources

- [github.com](https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon) — checked 2026-09-24
- [cinnamon.github.io](https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon)

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Last updated 2026-09-24 · sources checked 2026-09-24 · Markdown version of https://godooo.ai/en/product/kotaemon. Every page on this site has one: add .md to its address.