3.1k stars · GPL-3.0 · 2.0.23 (2026-07-08) · Track this in Rising ↗
The opposite architecture from the LiteLLM-plus-custom-code path — batteries actually included: FastAPI, RAG, plugin loader, WebSocket chat, all in one image.
Radar check
What we found when we opened it. Every bar is one fact, with its date.
Last code pushed 29 Jul 2026, 3 months before this check.
Latest release 2.0.23 on 8 Jul 2026.
Public since February 2023, a little over 3 years.
3,097 stars and 410 forks.
5 commits and 10 new issues in the last 90 days.
87 contributors. No pull requests merged in 90 days; changes go in directly.
No security policy file says how to report a problem. No published security advisories.
How the bars are scored
- Alive. Days since the last code push: a week or less 100, a month 90, three months 70, six months 50, a year 30, eighteen months 15, older 0.
- Releases. Age of the latest GitHub release, on a similar scale; no bar when the project publishes no releases.
- Maturity. Age of the project: eight years 100, five 90, three 70, two 55, one 40, six months 25, younger 10.
- Adoption. Stars on a log scale: 100,000 stars is 100, 10,000 is 80, 1,000 is 60, 100 is 40.
- Activity. Commits in the last 90 days: 300 or more 100, 100 85, 30 65, 10 45, any 25.
- Community. People who have contributed: 100 or more 100, 30 80, 10 60, 5 40, 2 25, one 10.
- Security. A published security policy 80, none 40; published advisories are listed, not scored.
Checked by Repo Radar on 25 Oct 2026 from the repository on GitHub. Covered in Edition 9.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it does
The Cheshire Cat runs as a web service and connects to a language model of your choosing. You upload documents and it stores them as embeddings, which are numeric summaries that make text searchable by meaning. When a question arrives, it finds the relevant passages and answers from them — the pattern usually called retrieval-augmented generation. It keeps a conversation history per user, and talks over both a normal web interface and a WebSocket connection for live chat. A plugin system lets you add tools and change its behaviour without editing the core. It ships as a single container image with an admin page included. It is not a hosted product, it does not supply a language model, and the version 2 line is openly labelled unstable alpha in the project's own readme.
Why it matters
Who it suits. Someone who wants a "chat with these documents" box working this afternoon and does not want to assemble one from a model gateway, a structured-output library and a vector store. It fits documentation sites and internal handbooks well. Skip it if the assistant will end up inside software that is sold, because the GPL-3.0 licence makes that awkward, and skip it if production stability matters today.
Verdict. Worth an afternoon as an experiment, not as a foundation. The unstable alpha label on version 2 is the project's own words and should be believed. Three thousand stars is a small community, so a disappearing maintainer is a real risk — and note that it has now crossed above three thousand, so it no longer counts as a hidden gem here. Building the same thing from LiteLLM, Instructor and pgvector is more work and the right call inside a real product.
Summary (Key Points)from the README
Key features
- Learning focus: The README calls it the best framework for learning how AI agents work, and its main use case is education and research.
- Bottom-up design: The project is built to be easy to understand from the ground up.
- Built for extension: It is designed to be extended through vibe coding or agentic engineering.
- Web UI: After quickstart, the UI runs on localhost:1865.
- REST API playground: Interactive API docs are available at localhost:1865/docs.
- Institutional use: The README says many companies and institutions use the Cat to publish agents on the web.
- Documentation and website: An official documentation site and a project website are linked from the README.
- License: The code is licensed under GPL3.
Important
- Alpha stability: Version 2 is described as unstable alpha, still under heavy development, with expected breaking changes, rough edges and incomplete features.
- Not for production: The README explicitly says it is not recommended for production use yet.
- Restricted contributions: Roadmaps are not published, and pull requests are only welcome if the related issue is assigned to you; contributors are directed to the contributor guide.
- Trademark ownership: The Cheshire Cat AI logo and name belong to Piero Savastano, the founder and maintainer, so they are not covered by the GPL3 code license.
- Sparse quickstart details: The README's quickstart mentions only an empty folder and the two local addresses, so the setup steps are not spelled out in the text itself.
Written by an AI model from the project’s README; not part of the review, and it can be wrong.
- Document search, plugins and live chat all included in one container image
- GPL-3.0, so it can be hosted and modified freely
- An admin page exists, so there is something usable within minutes
- The project labels its version 2 line an unstable alpha
- GPL-3.0 is a poor fit for embedding inside software that is sold
- A small community, so problems may have to be solved alone
A paid 'chat with your docs' widget
Docling for the markdown it reads, and a docs site to embed the widget in
docker run --rm -it -p 1865:80 ghcr.io/cheshire-cat-ai/core:latest # The admin page is then at http://localhost:1865/admin
