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πŸ“– The AI Tool Bible

Kotaemon vs Quivr

A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.

Tagline
Kotaemon
Open-source RAG UI for chatting with your own documents, locally or self-hosted.
Quivr
Open-source RAG framework for building custom AI assistants over your own documents in a few lines of Python.
Pricing
Kotaemon
FreeΒ· Free, open-source (MIT-style); self-hosted infrastructure costs only
Quivr
FreeΒ· Open source (pip install quivr-core); pay only for LLM/vector-store usage
Free trial
Kotaemon
Yes
Quivr
Yes
API
Kotaemon
Yes
Quivr
Yes
Platforms
Kotaemon
webmacoslinuxapi
Quivr
api
Open source
Kotaemon
Yes Β· Apache-2.0
Quivr
Yes Β· Apache-2.0
GitHub stars
Kotaemon
25,789
checked 2026-09-29
Quivr
7,414
checked 2026-09-29
Last GitHub push
Kotaemon
2026-07-14
Quivr
2025-02-21
First commit
Kotaemon
2024-03
Quivr
2024-05
Model used
Kotaemon
Multi-model (OpenAI, LlamaCPP, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint)
Quivr
Multi-model (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Gemma)
Best for
Kotaemon
Pick Kotaemon if you want a hackable, self-hosted RAG UI over your own documents with citation support and full control of the LLM and vector store.
Quivr
Pick Quivr if you are a Python developer who wants a lightweight, model-agnostic RAG library you can extend rather than a hosted chat-your-docs SaaS.
Not for
Kotaemon
Skip it if you need a polished SaaS product, enterprise SSO out of the box, or a managed RAG service you don't have to deploy yourself.
Quivr
Skip it if you want a turnkey no-code product with a polished UI, hosted vector store, and a sales team to call.
Editorial score
Kotaemon
7.0 / 10
Quivr
8.4 / 10
Use cases
Kotaemon
document-qaprivate-ragcitation-grounded-chatlocal-llm-frontendknowledge-base-search
Quivr
document-qacustom-knowledge-baserag-pipelineinternal-assistantschat-with-pdf
Pros
Kotaemon
  • Genuinely model- and vector-store-agnostic; swap backends without touching code
  • Citations with source highlights, not just naked LLM answers
  • One-click HuggingFace Spaces deploy or local installer scripts
  • Active GitHub project with clear extension hooks for developers
Quivr
  • Genuinely open source and pip-installable, no vendor lock-in
  • Model-agnostic: OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and Gemma supported
  • Minimal boilerplate to get a working RAG assistant running
  • Pairs with Megaparse for tougher PDF and document ingestion
  • Customizable pipeline with tools and web search when you need more
Cons
Kotaemon
  • Gradio UI feels prototype-grade compared to commercial RAG products
  • Default admin/admin credentials and thin auth aren't production-ready
  • Self-hosted only β€” no managed SaaS option if you don't want to run it
Quivr
  • Python library, not a hosted product or UI
  • You manage infra, vector store, and evals yourself
  • Documentation site is sparse compared to larger RAG frameworks
  • LLM and embedding costs are on you

Editorial score: rule-based, 0–10, from AI-assisted profile inputs (see /methodology) β€” not a user rating; β€œβ€”β€ means unscored. β€œNot listed” means we have no record of it, not that it is absent. GitHub figures and prices carry the date they were checked or captured; prices are shown as published, unconverted.

Pick Kotaemon if
  • βœ… Genuinely model- and vector-store-agnostic; swap backends without touching code
  • βœ… Citations with source highlights, not just naked LLM answers
  • βœ… One-click HuggingFace Spaces deploy or local installer scripts
  • βœ… Active GitHub project with clear extension hooks for developers
Pick Quivr if
  • βœ… Genuinely open source and pip-installable, no vendor lock-in
  • βœ… Model-agnostic: OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and Gemma supported
  • βœ… Minimal boilerplate to get a working RAG assistant running
  • βœ… Pairs with Megaparse for tougher PDF and document ingestion